ausfire Posted January 6, 2017 Share Posted January 6, 2017 I am a school teacher. General primary. The last 18 years of my career were spent as a School of the Air teacher - teaching children on remote sheep and cattle properties via HF radio in outback Queensland. I retired from teaching a few years back and now work as the curator of a historic village where I also do the blacksmith demos. It's nice to have a job where you have access to the forge anytime you like. Always had a forge at home too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latticino Posted January 6, 2017 Share Posted January 6, 2017 Currently work as a professional HVAC design engineer (means I'm certified to stamp construction drawings), for a small consulting firm, working primarily on health care facilities. Several former jobs, but the most notable was around 10 years as a self-employed glass blower (still hesitate to call what I did art rather than craft, so won't use the glass artist title). Blacksmithing only a hobby at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aessinus Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Engineering manager in aerospace composites with tool fab department and equipment/facility maintenance duties too. Keeps the days interesting. I was very lucky to start my professional career as a summer coop tool design/mfg engineer in '80. A couple years after graduation, I inherited the tool fab shop & machine maintenance, Lots of one-off, blacksmith solutions to keep "unique" production equipment running. My grandpa got me interested in smithing almost fifty years ago; I still use some of HIS grandfather's tongs. top/hardy tools and a small 1# straight pein (very sentimental about that one). My son is an engineer now & we enjoy building prototype stuff for work & repair projects for friends on evenings/weekends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted January 10, 2017 Share Posted January 10, 2017 Bum... I was a mechanic till the doc's desided I was to crazy to work back about 1990 so I draw a disability pension. Now I shoe and train horses to make the ends meet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted January 10, 2017 Share Posted January 10, 2017 1 hour ago, Charles R. Stevens said: Bum... I was a mechanic till the doc's desided I was to crazy to work back about 1990 so I draw a disability pension. Now I shoe and train horses to make the ends meet. You've got quite the racket going there Charles. How much do you charge people to train their horse's ends to meet? Really, I can think of a number of ways to get them to do that. Heck it wouldn't even be a challenge not even if you don't let the owners know how you do it. Frosty The Lucky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted January 10, 2017 Share Posted January 10, 2017 Considering how much artificial insemination is used in animal breeding these days, it's not surprising that horses would have forgotten such basic skills and need to be retrained. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles R. Stevens Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 JHCC, if only a goodly few humans would forget such basic skills... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Turley Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 I am still surprised to be doing what I'm doing, running a blacksmithing school. I got interested in horseback riding during high school at a horse rental stable, one dollar per hour in the 1950's. To ask my parents for a horse would have been folly. No money and no place to keep it. From the stable groom, I learned stall mucking, saddling, bridling, and haltering. So on Saturdays, I would help in various ways, including working with customers until the end of the day, when I would have earned a one hour ride without having to pay cash. In those days, a dollar was as big as a cartwheel. I attended college majoring in Sociology & Anthropology. Never did much with that. although I think that the essays I wrote allowed me to later co-author a book with Simmons, "Southwestern Colonial Ironwork," first published in 1980. Then I had odd no-count jobs and eventually wound up in an L.A. office building adjusting insurance claims, a desk job. Not fun. I found a horseshoer who allowed me to work with him on Saturdays. After 10 months, I was able to shoe a horse, although it took me much longer than my mentor. This was my first forge work...dealing with horseshoes. I then attended a horseshoing school in Oregon, hot-shod horses in Salem for about 3 years. I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, because I had visited there before, and I liked the area. I began to take orders for such things as fireplace tools and screens, branding irons, and kitchen utensils. This led to more and more blacksmithing and fewer horses. I finally was able to turn my shoeing account over to another horseshoer and open a small smithy. After smithing for a few years, I opened my blacksmithing school in 1970. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notownkid Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 I spent the better part of 40 yrs moving steel As a New Car Dealer and later in the Auto Parts business. Moved a lot of metal down the road. Along the way did a hitch in Army as a Heavy Equip mechanic, grew up in a livery stable where at 10 started assisting an old guy in the outdoor forge making carriage parts then went to the family dairy farm.(Army put an end to that gramp sold the farm while all us younger guys were in the Service) Did 30 yr as a Vol. Firefighter including 8 as a chief, drove oil truck and TT unit hauling #2 fuel and Gas from Boston into VT. Had my own small horse farm for 30 yrs. 25 yrs. Competitive shooter locally, regionally and nationally smallbore and highpower ranging from matches at 50' to 1,000 yrds. After shoulder operations just shoot Trap for pleasure. Now retired moved back to my hometown onto a small farm that we bought 25 yrs ago. (the only thing growing is Me growing Older) Have new retirement blacksmith shop I plan on finishing up in the spring. I do Historic research on Barns, Farming, Blacksmith shops, Stables, Logging & Railroads. Also Hunt and Fish and swear at the winter weather (that keeps me busy 3 months a yr anyways) I try to accomplish something everyday even if it just getting out of bed! Be in charge of your life while you can. There are all sorts of family members just waiting to tell you what to do or what they are going to do to you. Enjoy what time you have left 1 yr, or 50 yrs it all passes tooooooo Fasttttttt. Charles I figured I'm doing good if I can get the 2 ends within sight of each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donniev Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 Concrete for about 10 years, last 2 yrs I've been a pipe welder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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