Forging a new hobby

Brody Porter has a new hobby, one he’s been doing for over a year now: blacksmithing. When some people think of blacksmithing, they think of huge Viking sized men in furnace-like room holding a hammer that weighs about a thousand pounds. They make horseshoes and shields and swords and stuff. What isn’t necessarily pictured is a 15-year-old boy holding a three lb. hammer in one hand and a wicked cool knife in the other.

Porter got interested in forging when he stumbled upon a T.V. special one day. He was hooked immediately. He started out with a section of train track and a small charcoal forge, watched a ton of YouTube videos, and joined the Facebook group Blacksmithing for Beginners, a 65,000 plus group that posts videos and hosts question and answer forums, all about forging and blacksmithing.

Now, Porter uses a 110 lb. anvil that was made in England 130 years ago. He also switched to a propane heated forge. “It’s easier to control the temperature with the propane forge,” Porter explained.

For more on this story, see this week’s North Star News!