by Steve Martin » Tue Oct 07, 2014 5:04 am
Terry, Sorry you are having such a hard time. I can take you to 3 forges within 5 miles of my home and one of those is in a rather closely developed subdivision within town limits. I also have a forge, anvil, etc. From reading JRCCAIM's comments over several years, my read is that he tries to encourage folks to work with what they have in the environment within which they live by using his own experience as "how-to" examples. John Wilson, in his book on making wooden planes, tells how to make a perfectly acceptable forge using two empty vegetable/soup cans and some MAPP gas canisters. You can't make a sword with that set up but you can make very good carving knives, hook knives, and plane blades, as I have been able to do.
Members of the turning club to which I belong often complain because they can't turn a certain hollow style vessel because they don't own a lathe that costs at least six figures, such as a Powermatic, but we have other members who turn gallery level hollow vessels on mini-lathes. If you want to make a carving knife, figure out how to do it within the constraints that you have to live with. You'll be even prouder when it works, and even if it doesn't, try again until it does. I would not voluntarily live where JRRCAIM lives because he has constraints, cold for one, that I do not want to have, but I know other folks who do not want the constraints I am willing to live with, summer heat and humidity for example.
I know folks who live within 50 miles of my house who are pretty successful supplementing their income by panning for gold even though I choose not to try that. I demonstrate traditional wood working using a pole lathe, shaving horse, hatchets, adzes, hook knives, etc. The gold panners think I'm nuts, I pretty much share that opinion about them.
Good luck to you and yours!