And so it starts!

So... first post!

I've been daydreaming of being a blacksmith since I was a little kid. At the time, with all my mighty innocence and child fantasy, this is what I (and I believe a lot of young smiths out there) wanted to forge as a first project:

I mean, it's easy, grab a piece of steel, heat it and fold it a lot of times and voilà a katana is made.

I was 12 when I've first tried to make my dream katana. Armed with a huge piece of leaf spring steel, my grandfather's anvil and forge, I started to pound and pound and pound on that future beautiful sword. Eventually I was able to, basically, draw that piece of steel to a point and nothing more. Frustrated for not being able to make something that even resembles a sword, but completely exhilarated for that manly and primitive moment were steel was forced to take shape at my will (kind of), the heat of fire and the power of the hammer on the anvil that made my chest hairs grow at least an inch, I decided that THAT was the way I wanted to live my life.

Twenty years passed since that day an on the seventh day of the eleventh month last year I finally had the chance to again, give it a try..

Of course this time I didn't try to make a katana. Now that I have a deeper understanding of how a katanas is made, that kind of projects were put to a side and I decided to start on something simple... well... sort of....

This was my first "real" project ever, this time, armed with a rail road track for an anvil, a stoning hammer, an adobe forge cranked with a broken handle blower, a vise-grips for tongs that failed me at every single hammer blow sending my work to the ground and a complete lack of sense of what I was doing. I even tried to record the process of forging it to make a cool Youtube video to show to my friends and wife, but after a memory card full of hot steel flying around (and not in the cool way) and me laughing hard at my inability to shape that horseshoe, I decided to stop the camera and try to finish it. I think it took me more than 2 hours to make what I've seen made in 20 min. on Youtube 

I know it kind of looks like crap, but I really, really wanted to make this my first forged piece as a gift to my better half, my beautiful wife that gave me so much support at my quest to find a place to put my forge.

It is supposed to be a horseshoe heart as made by Brian Brazeal.. He makes it look so, so easy, trust me.. it's not!..

Full of pride of my crooked heart, I was finally.. a blacksmith.. 

Well, at least a blacksmith in the making..