Hello from Connecticut

[Mike35]

Hi all, glad I found the this forum full of great information. Looking to learn some new skills, I have been casually metalworking since I was a kid. Primarily welding and general metal fabrication. Completely self taught and still learning new things.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Mile, glad to have you. I'm mostly self taught where blacksmithing is concerned. Went to trade school as welder fabricator butnever stopped learning. Anyway, any time you can spend with an experienced smith is worth may times as much figuring it out yourself. Being self taught is enjoyable if you enjoy the learning curve. However if you want to learn blacksmithing it'll go much faster hanging with other smiths.

How are you set up for smithing? If you're going to build your equipment I recommend you check out Charles Steven's "another rail anvil" thread in the improvised anvil section. That probably isn't the right subject for his thread, I'm a TBI survivor and my memory is shaky, a search of Charles name will provide a list of his posts.

The Iforge search function stinks and badly. Use your preferred search engine and include "Iforge" in the terms and related Iforge posts will be in the first hits. 

Playing with fire and hitting things with hammers is more fun than should be legal. Just wait till you use a tool you made with your own hands. SWEET.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Mike35]

Frosty, thanks for the warm welcome, to be totally honest I am not set up as a blacksmith at all. Looking for an ASO or decent anvil. And searching forge designs, i am going to build my own at some point when I decide on a final design. Leaning towards a propane forge, I work for an HVAC company doing property management so I have a perfect source for parts and equipment. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Welcome from the Ozark mountains.

[pnut]

You could always build a jabod until you decide upon what design you want and with an improvised anvil you could be forging today and building up those skills. 

I was looking to build a propane forge for about two years and my greatest regret when it comes to blacksmithing is all the time I spent not forging because I was waiting on the perfect forge or anvil etc. When it finally clicked I was forging within a couple a days with less than twenty dollars invested. Getting started I believe is the most important step. 

Welcome aboard, be safe,and remember it's supposed to be fun

Pnut

[ThomasPowers]

Note you probably DON'T want an ASO, that's an "Anvil Shaped Object"---looks like an anvil but made from gray cast iron and so not usable as an anvil and often sold as an anvil at elevated prices.  You probably want an "Improvised Anvil"  a solid chunk of steel that doesn't look like a London Pattern anvil but may look like anvils used for the last 3000 years of smithing.  

And a short video of improvised anvils being used professionally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfuE-VVsKB8