Blacksmiths Near Lafayette, Louisiana

[Bumpy]

Do any of you live near Lafayette, Louisiana? I have a few questions and would love to chat with someone in my area. I have 0 tools, knowledge, or experience. I do however have a weird, unexpected, yet great interest in this trade. I do not intend to make any money, but for some strange reason lol, I find myself absolutely consumed by the idea of heating iron and beating it into a shape. I can draw decently... BUT I have a fairly big concern. When I watch videos on YouTube and see someone using a belt sander to hollow grind a knife blade, I feel like I'm watching Rembrandt paint. This MUST take a huge amount of talent... am I right? Also it must be extremely difficult to beat the iron into a nice looking shape?!? I would love to try this, but i don't want to dump a ton of money on something that is equivalent to me trying to train for the NBA slam dunk contest.... just ain't gonna happen lol. Anyway, I would love to talk to someone local about this.

[ThomasPowers]

Bumpy, once I was upset by folks claiming you had to spend a lot of money to set up blacksmithing; so I went out and built a beginner's set up for under US$25 it included Forge, Blower, Anvil and some basic tools.  I used the forge for welding up damascus billets for several years as it was very handy for that.  As to skills hammering iron, you can have talent and/or you can have practice; but even talented folks need the practice just not as much.  (I had one student who had basically no background in working with his hands; he's now a professional smith!)

[the other dave]

Bumpy,

Check out the LAMA website, http://lama-blacksmith.org/    .    A number of the members of LAMA live in or near Lafayette.  Also the February meeting is in New Iberia, which is just down the road from Lafayette.