Hey All,

First and foremost, glad to be here. I have been eyeing the ABS, abd battling whether or not to join for a while now but only decided to dive in pretty recently. First, a bit of background.

I got started "smithing" when I was around 11. After watching a History Channel special back in 2002. As soon as I watched the smith begin smelting his own ore to turn it into a viking-era sword I was hooked. At the time, I was a bright eyed SF&F nut, and a bit of a builder, and blacksmithing just hit me in a spot that nothing else really did at the time. It didnt take long for me to dig a hole in our back yard and start smacking steel between a 12lb sledge hammer laid on some firewood and an old ball peen. I remember when my father came out and asked, "What in the &*%^ are you doing?" - "Blacksmithing, Dad!" - "No, you are ripping apart my lawn!". He soon realized that I was about as stone-cold serious as a 11 year old could be about anything, and I began building my first legit forge soon after that in an old wheel barrow. I was definitely that D&D playing kid who wanted to make swords (in typical 80's fantasy motifs!) but it didnt take me long to realize though that I really wanted to do this, not just have the final blade in hand.

When i got to college I was told, in no roundabout manner, that building fires on campus to blacksmith was not allowed. So, I decided to work in the engineering fabrication lab and built my first 2 propane forges there. I didnt really start getting serious about blademsithing, or blacksmithing in general, until I built that first propane forge. With it, I managed to find a thousand and one ways to not do some things, but I learned a bunch from brute-force experimentation. Once I graduated, I began working in a foundry outside of Syracuse NY and met up with the New York State Designer Blacksmiths. It was the first time I had ever really worked ( let along talked) with any other smiths, and after meeting a good friend of mine I helped him run the rag-tag group we had in the Mohawk region.

Back in 2014, I relocated down to Louisville KY, where I am now, and have my own mini shop for the first time ever. I have also decided to officially work towards my JS as well, which is what prompted my official joining of the ABS. So far, this community has been super helpful and kind to me and I hope to meet new people and learn even more while tuning my own skills.

-Dan