Thanks. I'll let him know.
How long have you been blacksmithing? I had never watched a blacksmith work until about 20 or so years ago at some colonial reenactment thing. There was a blacksmith there. All he was making was nails and I was still in awe. I amazed at what someone with a little talent and patience can beat out of a piece of metal.
Been smithing about seven years now. Like you I had seen it at reenactments and always thought it was intriguing. Each time I went to a historical site it seemed there would be a working blacksmith shop there. Fort Niagara, Fort Erie, Williamsburg, Monticello and a lot of other plantations across the south. I would always ditch the tour and spend the whole time in the smithy.
Finally I happened to almost trip over an anvil at a barn sale one day and bought it on the spot, that was in 2001. Information was scarce and hard to come by. Libraries in my area didn't have much on the subject either. Getting started was going pretty slow. Finally I happened to meet an old timer who did some horseshoeing. His horse turned up at my place one morning, was drinking out of the pool out in the yard so I clipped a dog leash onto his bridle and walked him home. I knew which farm he came from because I had seen him out in the corral there plenty of times, on the next road behind me. Our properties met at the back fence.
Turned out that the owner had been shoeing his own horses for over sixty years. That's what got me started, meeting someone who knew what they were doing. He showed me the basics like how to make tongs and punches/chisels and pointed me to another old timer he knew that sold me a firepot, some coal, a leg vice and a hand cranked blower so I could get my own smithy outfitted enough to get started.
That old farmer taught me how to turn a horseshoe, use a hoof gauge, trim a hoof, etc. etc. He got me to where I could trim his horses hoofs and properly shoe them by myself with him just watching, the percheron that liked to break the fence and wander around and his two halflingers too. That lasted about six months until I had had enough of my girlfriend at the time and Split. She had a gambling fetish and was spending money like shit through a goose and I got a Uhaul one day when I knew she was spending the whole day at her grandparent's. 85% of the contents of the house were mine so she basically came home to an empty house and a note on the counter next to her bag full of bingo gear. "Rent is paid for next month. You have 37 days left to get your ass out. Landlord has house on the market so expect him to be showing the place. Have a nice life". I heard through the grapevine that she quietly left without incident the next day, I assume to her grandparent's. She knew full well the local cop (one cop small town police dept) was my fishing buddy so I expected her to not trash the place.
I rented a farmhouse in the next county over and soon ran into a full time farrier in the local bar there. He also did some general blacksmithing and turned me onto the group "A.B.A.N.A.", the artist-blacksmith association of North America. I joined the local chapter, "local" being 70 miles away but I made it to about a year of monthly meetings before I quit attending because of the time and distance involved. I did learn a lot with those guys though, some very accomplished and highly talented people. I rode with the farrier on some weeknights and a Saturday now and then and learned a lot more about shoeing. Enough that I knew I didn't want to be a full time farrier. Never met a horse I didn't like but "horsie people" are a different breed entirely. No thanks. Most of them are fine folks but many are hard to put up with and difficult to please. One thing he told me that would likely offend most (his words, not mine) but I would have to agree with is this~ "these rich snobs like to treat you like the ni**er help and expect you to take peanuts for it". I do shoe some drafts for a few close friends but that's it. I find that those who keep drafts to be an entirely different class of people, salt of the earth types. Never met a draft horse owner I didn't like.
Draft horses also tend to be much more pleasant to be around than the Arabians, Thouroughbreds and warmbloods of the bluebloods. I have been bitten, pissed on, shit on, head butted and mashed against walls by these temperamental breeds. Shoeing is dangerous and I find that the temperament and personality of any given horse closely resembles that of their owners. Bitchy little 13 year old princess = bitchy whiny horse, predictable tantrum soon to follow.
I am much more happy to make things like Suffolk latches, hinges, candlesticks, andirons and fireplace sets as a hobby. If it got to be too much like work I probably wouldn't like it much anymore.