On March 14, 2020, the second day of the pandemic, my father sat my siblings and I down and gave us the ugly truth, we were gonna be stuck in the house for a while, so he told us there was only one thing that we could do, find a hobby…

    Upon researching trusted sources such as Forged in Fire or Alec Steele, I discovered an interest in forging and asked my dad if I could blacksmith, his response was giving me fire bricks, coal, and a piece of rebar and said “Have at it!”

    At first, I was dismayed, as I quickly learned that even yellow-hot steel can tire a person attempting to shape it just as quickly as cold steel. I was set on trying to make a knife, and it was tiresome, I had 7 attempts before I made one that didn’t break, burn or bend, and even then it looked awful, but after creating one awful knife, my only thought was to make a better one. 

    After a whole summer of using a small jewelry anvil and old railroad ties to attempt to forge knives, I finally started to make progress. I read through Mark Asperys The Skills of a Blacksmith Volumes 1-3 and absorbed any blacksmithing information I could find, taking all of it back to the forge to experiment and learn.

    When the quarantine regulations finally started to die down, I lost time, but still retained my interest in forging, though I don’t see a lifelong career, but what I do see is the chance to use engineering and chemistry to have fun and perhaps along the way provide people with quality items.