Bladesmithing Class 1: Introduction

1. What to Expect from this Class: Welcome everybody. My name is Trevor, and I am a full-time, self-taught blacksmith, and I've decided to make an online course to help you learn how to do the exact same thing. So let's just get right to it. What you can expect from this class. I'll teach you everything you need to know from basic equipment that you need, how to use that basic equipment, how to keep yourself safe. And then of course, how to make some really cool things. And we'll talk about low leaf pendens. We'll talk about ornamental law hangers, useful tools that you can use around the house. And then of course we'll go into my primary focus, blade smithing. So we've got a lot of really cool things that we have to look forward to. And I think you're really going to like it. So whether you think the blacksmith thing is interesting because at video games or movies, or maybe it's books or history or whatever. This is the class that you need in order to start off. Now it's interesting to me is that many times it seems like kind of a daunting task. Like a blacksmith isn't like a forgotten art, but it's really not. In fact, I'm just some random guy in an isolated area in Alaska with no access to any classes where I am. So I taught myself. So there's two big reasons why I think you should take this class. The first one, I'll help you avoid all of the mistakes that I've made throughout the US. You see there's a lot of things with blacksmith thing, especially with Blade Smith thing, that you could be doing wrong and you have no idea you're doing wrong. And it's severely affects the quality of your products. The good news is I've already made all those mistakes because the top myself. And then eventually I learned how to make a quality product. So with this, you'll avoid so many problems. So while there isn't a fast-track to learning how to be a blacksmith. There's definitely a slow track and I'll help you stay away from them. Another reason, the second reason why I say you should take this class, because there's so much information out there, but it can be kind of overwhelming. So I've taken all of my experience at all of these different things for all over the Internet. And I've combined them into just one course to teach you everything you need to know. So let's cut out all the stressful stuff and let's just focus on the absolute basics. And then later in the course, you'll see some more advanced things, especially with Blade smithing. So you'll learn how to make a very basic knife. And then eventually I'll show you how to make more advanced things like Damascus and sand, My, and other things like that. So if you want to be a blacksmith, this is your course. If you want to be a blade Smith, this is also your course because while blacksmith thing and blades missing are very similar, there are some key differences. And you'll see some skills that you'll use it one, but you won't use it in the other and then vice versa. But this is still going to be an all encompassing class to help you. Now check out the outline that I've included underneath because they will help you see what it is you can look forward to. So for now, we'll handle the absolute basics and then later we'll move on to some of the more advanced things. But it needs to be one step at a time. If you really want, you can go ahead and skip. But I would suggest that you stick with one lesson at a time. So we'll have class 1, one through ten, all of the basic lessons. And then once it's finished with filming and editing, then class 2 will be released altogether, one big chunk, and it will help you move onto the next one. So there's a lot to look forward to. Really think you're going to like it. I really think it's going to be a lot of fun. So make sure you follow along. Join this class. Wait for Class 2, 3, 4, 5. We've got a huge, huge outline for some of the cool stuff we're going to do. So this will be a progressive thing. It will take time, but it will definitely be worth it. So if you wanted to learn how to be a blacksmith, and if you want to learn how to be a blade Smith, sign up for this class. And yeah, let's go have some fun. 2. Get to know the Instructor : Okay, we are on Lesson 2 of class one. Get to know your instructor to why do you need to get to know the instructor? Well, honestly, if you want to know that you can trust that this guy knows what he's doing. You need to know a little bit about his background and what qualifies him to be an instructor. So my name is Trevor bear and I was born and raised in Kenai, Alaska. Back at that time, keen, I did not have much going on. There was no Internet and we're very disconnected from the main hub and they're in Anchorage. So I had video games playing in the woods, books, movies. That was my intro fact that pretty much encapsulates my entire childhood. So those things are where I was first introduced to the idea of blacksmithing, right? So you see the flames and you see the sparks, and you see that big burly guy hammering on something with a hammer. And it's just so cool. And they take a sword, you know, quenching your flame. Yeah, I was completely taken away by that. Totally loved it. So as I grew up, I started a 100 and more and more and I was using blades consistently. So then eventually I felt link or all of these blades that I'm using really have that certain something to them. You know, there's something lacking. So I decided one day and wonder if I can make my own. And I did. I made my own knife. I cut it out of a block of steel and it was terrible. Honestly, it wasn't even heat treated because I didn't know that was a thing. In fact, first couple notes I made were not he treated because I didn't know that they had to be heat treated. Eventually I learned how to make a proper knife. And then I had a buddy say like, well, what if we made me one? I'll pay you for it. Now, first-time ever had a commission, so to speak, and then eventually grew and grew and grew and then my abilities improved and then my confidence improved. And I was able to make equality blade. Years later. Finally started my own official nice making business. And yet it took off kinda helpful when you live in Alaska if a lot of people 19 and Alaskan. So blacksmithing and blade smithing took off. And then eventually years later, I was able to quit my full-time job and then start as a blacksmith full-time. It was challenging and it's actually really challenging. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that someone just drop everything, really let it develop. But anyways, I have spent years learning this craft and making all the problems. And then eventually I decided to make it my full-time profession and I did and it is absolutely worth it. They have been so many challenges. Blade smithing, blacksmith thing, both of them puts you through so many challenges. Unexpected things you had to learn, they had no idea you have to learn. And then eventually you start to see your body in your muscles. Just know how to do it. And then your brain just learning, like all of a sudden, things start clicking. And it's an incredible thing to see your body like finally figure it out, you know. But it mostly comes from a brain. Kind of get the brain in the right spot. So there you go. I've been a full-time placements for a few years now. I've been blades missing for many years and I absolutely adore it and I absolutely love it. And that's why I wanted to make Haas. So here's class. So that is how to get to know me if you've got the basics. Now remember, in if you look at the outline less than 10, we're going to have a class project. What's your reason, your motivation. But we'll get there. So that's it. When I'm sort of born or raised in Alaska. Placement. You now know your instructor. 3. Tour of the Forge: All right, everybody, we are in class one. We're on Lesson 3. Let's have a tour of the forage and keep in mind that the forges a little bit different looking because we unfortunately had an electrical fire destroyed the entire business back at the end of 2020. Kind of a typical fashion at 0.20, right? So it looks a little bit different. This is a temporary workspace, but it is definitely enough to do the work right now though. Let's put your foot up. Okay. We're on our way to the forge is a snowy day and Alaska a lot of morrow Anyway. So so I work out of a small woodshed for now because I lost my shop as I told you before. But that is okay. Let's go check it out. Slow bridge. Okay. You get to have a first look of the cleaned up shop. So let's do some highlights. This big bad boy is the grinder. You will definitely, definitely benefit from getting a grinder one day. Not necessary, but definitely necessary. If you want to go quickly, then we're going to have a toaster oven. And these things will be very nice for when you need to warm up stuff and when you want to temper your blades more on that in another video, a little bit storage. Of course, a drill press, very, very nice tool to have. I got a very cheap word, it's only a five speed. That's fine. Does the job for me. Tool racks, Devlin gets us up and tool racks definitely get yourself a bandsaw. Now, no, these are not absolutely necessary, but they're very helpful. So cut pad, it got some works in progress here. Sorry, it's messy. It's how it goes. I have a little tiny animal. You've got some storage here. I have a press. It is not a fancy press, but it's oppress. Now here is one of the most important pieces, the forage. I personally decided to get mine with fair and knives on the side. And this is a three propane forge, a burner forge. It seems them use. That's fine. These are all fire brachii can replace those. You get a rack for another fire brick. This is all the temporary one, remember? But we also have our tanks and our envelope. Now these are very nice. We'll talk all about the animals, but I made a little rack forward as well to hold the tools. And of course, a vice. I have my advice on a stand so that I can move it around. I also have another vice over there, but that's it. We have a quintic, they're a little one. We have a larger cringe tank there. There are all kinds of different options and things you can do. So it's a little rough because we are working on a smaller area, working in a small area than when I had. But you get the idea here is what the forage currently looks like. We're hoping to get back to full force to recover from the fire. Okay. So that was it. That was the George would think. Maybe you saw in there a little bit of the materials and different tools that you're going to need to look out for. But we'll talk all about that soon. So that's where all the magic happens. I hope you liked it. 4. Stock Removal Vs Forging: Okay, we are on Class 1, Lesson 4. Let's talk about the differences between foraging and stock removal. No, forging has to do with Blade smithing. This is a forage Blaine Smith has to do with heating the material and moving it with hammer and anvil. That's why you hear black smith. Blade Smith. So blades missing is a part of knife making, but it's a more specific part of it. Now when you forge something, you have a number of pros and cons. Some of the pros are that if done well, you can make a higher quality blade. Then you could if you were stock removal, the reason being is because the internal grain structure is being worked. It compressed, it strengthened as opposed to just cut away, then removed. If done properly. That will give you a superior quality of blame. Some of the cons is that blade smithing can be much more challenging to learn, to do properly and takes a long time to actually really start doing well at it. It's 0 because of that. Until you're good at it, you won't be able to produce as high-quality of a blade as a stock removal because there's lots and lots of things that you could do to mess up that blade. And you won't even know that you've messed it up until you're well along in the making process. Another pro is that you're not as confined by shaped because you can shape it once you've learned how to do it however you want. Now let's talk about stock removal. Stock removal is when you take your bar stock and you design your blade and you just cut it out. And it's a lot easier to do. So pros and cons, pros is very easy to learn. Comparatively. You just design it, you cut it, and then grind in the bevels and heat treated. For instance, here's an example of a blade that I had cut out for me by a buddy. You're going to have some really cool designs. If you can design it, you can cut it out. It'll be a little tricky, but it's possible. The problem is, is that I didn't work with this with the hammer. So some of the cons is that if you have a experienced blade Smith, compare his blade with a high-quality stock removal blade. The blade Smith will be able to produce a higher quality blade. You probably won't notice it unless you really know what you're doing, but it is true. So you're also going to be confined to the shape of the stock material that you have. For instance, look at this. If you had this style of bar stock, which is an inch and a half wide and 1 eighth thick, then you're going to be limited by that bar stock. You can't achieve this particular shape. You can fix that by just buying a wider piece, but you get the idea. You are a little bit more limited. Now you'll also hear a lot of people say, well for degrees, the only proper way to make our knife. That's not true. You can very easily make a knife with stock removal. Always hear a lot of people say a stock removal is the only way to go because forging its ancient. But it's also not true. The best blades are forged by the best Smith's. So it's up to you. If you want to forge, do that. If you want to stock removal, do that. If you want to do a little bit of both, do that. Personally, I will do all my blades with forging. I have this one has a test, the stock removal because I like the aesthetic and I liked the fact that I can learn a fun skill and I have the space and tools I need to do that. So it's up to you forging or stock removal. 5. Basic and Intermediate Gear: All right, Let's talk about some of the basic gear you're going to need in less than five of class 1. Let's talk about the absolute most basic equipment you need to start making knives for stock removal. Here's what you need, excluding the bar stock, which I'll talk more about. You'll need some files. You're also going to need some sandpaper and I'll come in handy later. You're going to need some C clamps. You're gonna need a small work table. You're going to need a small toaster oven. Maybe you saw that the torque you're going to need a way to heat it. So honestly I say just by the forage because then you have forged you're gonna need a bucket with some oil in order to quench. And you're going to need a way to sharpen it. If you get to this point and you don't have holes, you don't need a drill press. You could just throw a pair of horde handle on it and be done. But we've got a knife. If you want to progress, you'll need more. Now if you want to forge a blade, you'll need that plus a little bit extra. You'll also need some form of an anvil. I'll tell you later on in later lessons how to obtain an animal. You'll need some hammers. I'll also tell you later on what type of hammers you need. Annual need some other simple things like tongs. Tongs are important ones. Keep in mind, we'll also be talking about PPE safety equipment that you'll need in the next one. So definitely we're going to talk about that, the word that is the most basic of basic equipment that you need or to start off as a blacksmith and especially as placements. Now some of the more intermediate gear that you can look into are a belt sander. There's a 1 by 32 belt sander which is under a $100 and it won't be just fine for doing simple projects and getting you started. Of course you can upgrade, but we'll get there when we get there. Also a drill press, this kind of intermediate that will allow you to start making more complicated handles. Like what handles and my Carta and other stuff like that because you need to be able to pin it off, so I need to get some paints with them later. Some of the other things that you'll need are or that you can consider getting our bandsaw that will really, really help you with getting your handled material ready to go. Doing more than just simple pair record. Now there's also even more. You could do special hammers, special foraging tools. You can get different temporary and ovens, better tempering of a jig and get a press like a blacksmith thing press, but that's more of an intermediate, more of an advanced thing. Or it could even get a power hammer, which is definitely an advanced tool. So there's a whole lot of options of tools that you could get. But I recommend start with the most basic, the most simple things. If you need to get or if you want to be forging your blades and now you know what you need, you need a way to heat it. You need a way to beat it is something beat it on. I wanted to do stock removal. You just need maybe an angle grinder, something that cut it out and then a way to put it in the levels. So there's a whole lot of options. If you have specific questions, send me an e-mail and knives at yahoo.com. I'll try to help you out the best I can. And we'll be talking about each one of these pieces of equipment in more detail, I think in the second class so that you learn where to get her, how to get them stuff. Again. There we go. A lot of information, lot more coming up. 6. A Note on Safety: Okay, we are on Class 1 now, less than six, we're really moving along, so let's not hesitate anymore. Let's talk about safety. No, no. Safety is not the most interesting thing you could talk about, but it is incredibly important. As you may know, if you've watched my video on a tour of the forge, we had a non-electrical fire completely destroy our business in the end of 2020. It was unexpected. It was late at night and it was a bad wire. So I am a huge proponent now of safety. Also, a quick thank you to not only the community online, but also my local community which helped me recover from that fire. I was back to business and just a few short months and incredible help. So let's talk about that safety. First of all, personal safety. Some of the equipment that you need to keep yourself safe. Safety glasses. Don't skimp on these things because all it takes is a tiny little piece to really hurt yourself. So don't go with sunglasses, don't want readers get actual safety glasses. They're made specifically for them. Also have plenty of hearing protection. You don't I have Bluetooth headphones. Not only are they noise canceling and worked for a grade, like there for work. But there also have speakers insight. So I wasn't musical, that was pretty nice actually. They're very portable. So look into that. You also need gloves. Now there are times where you don't want to wear gloves, so even or not. For instance, if you're using a drill press, find a different way to hold the material. Don't use gloves. The drill press will catch that glove and wrap your finger around it and do all kinds of bad stuff. I don't want to necessarily get into, but it's very dangerous. Also, there's times where if you're using a belt sander, consider not using gloves. It depends on the situation, but exact same thing. You catch a glove and that motor, you've got problems. So moving on. Also get yourself a respirator because there's a lot of grinding. Well, Sadat's a lot of metal dust. They don't want that in your lungs. Next you want to print? No, it is to me, it is safety because you protect yourself from burns. You also predict your clothing and that's a big deal. Honestly. You don't need to blow through all your clothing just because we're still really don't want to wear an apron. I would also recommend wearing long pants, hats, boots. So I've had pieces turn my shin. I've also had pieces fall in-between into my boot or maybe at least some boots falls ensure boot stuck in your future. That's a terrible situation. So definitely avoid that. Now let's talk about safety in the forge. Fire extinguisher. Just do it. Okay. I've been working on metal and I hit it wrong and it flies out of my tongue into the corner of the building and falls underneath a shelf and instantly sparks. So now I'm diving through the garage trying to get to it in order to put it out. Get yourself a fire extinguisher. If you don't have to get it, if you do have one, makes sure it's charged. Because if there's no worse feeling that taken out your fire extinguisher in the extreme moment and enough of habits. Make sure it's charged, okay? Because a lot of other things that you want to keep in mind so you don't hurt yourself or others around you. Make sure you've got ventilation. Because if you're working on a forage, especially if you're working in a coal forage, there's a lot of fumes or if you're working on appropriate for it to still while if you use it. So make sure there's a lot of ventilation is pretty much what I'm trying to type. And the electrical things is tempting to just put all your stuff into one big giant electrical box and go from there. If you need to have an electrician come and check out your shop, do it. Like I said, we had a bad electrical wire and it burned down everything. Don't cut corners when it comes to safety and electrical. Wherever possible, plug your machines directly to the source of power for your house. Do not do it on the outlet. Do not use lots and lots of extension towards older especially I've seen some that were extension cord to an extension cord to a box. I'll do that. You're literally asking for trouble and it's only a matter of time. Other things in that there are other than that it's just common sense, please, Martin George, self, play it safe. Don't get into a hurry. You'll work in bandsaw, camera, forge, do not rush. Also, last point. With a quench take. There is displacement when you dip your knife in. So if you dip this size of knife into your take and it gets close, when you dip a larger knife in, that oil could spill over. And not only is the oil spilling over, it's now flaming oil spilling over. Safety verse. Be safe, everyone, don't hurt yourself. It's an amazing occupation, but it's not worth getting hurt. 7. Shop Layout: All right guys, we are now on class 1, Lesson 7. Let's talk about shop layout. Here is a PDF of a very basic looking shop layout. And keep in mind this depends on you and what you have available. So we'll do the big one and we'll also do the small one. Just in case you're having more of a compact space. If you have questions, email me at bentonite as a young.com, but check it out. Talk about it. All right, so a quick look at the larger version. We see we have our anvil in the middle next to our forge. Try to keep your Forge and your envelope as close as you can. Also keep a quench tank nearby. Now, also, we want to talk a little bit about the safety aspect again, because we talked about it before. But make sure you have plenty of space around your Forge. You do not want to burn down your shop. Now, going from left to right, Let's look at it. We have the belt sander. Depending on how large of a belt center you have, this might change, but if you have the two by 72, you might have it on its own separate table. So you have room for all the belts and you have room to maneuver the pieces you're working with, whatever the case may be. But definitely set yourself up a new area for belt sander. And we also have an area for advice. Now you can do a vice on a free floating stand, which is actually what I prefer, is also good to have a work vice on the table itself so that it's a little more sturdy. So get yourself at least one vice, but probably to then make sure you've got some tool racks and then you need to work table and we'll add some space. All kinds of stuff will be on your work table, have a drill press, have more tool racks in the bag to hold all the different drill bits and all the different things you might be using. I have a bucket of water nearby, preferably haven't near the belt sander actually would be a better place because that helps you cool things off while you're working on it so you don't overheat your material. And of course you need some storage if you're fancy and you have big items like a blacksmith thing press or maybe a power hammer. Give that its own area and make sure you have plenty of storage. Now let's talk about a smaller version of what you can do. Now this might be that you have an area in the garage and there's not super different, but you'll see You just need to maximize the space, which will probably mean you need to be much more organized in order to make it all fit. Now we see it's not super different. But if you don't have a lot of space to work with, then you're going to have your envelope pretty close to your work table, have your vice nearby still. One of the big differences is that the quench tank, you can make it movable. Maybe put it on some castor wheels so you can roll underneath the work table or something, put a cap on it, keep it nice and clean. You'll have limited storage, you'll have limited work table. Even with the drill press and tools that you could use, it'll be a little more difficult, but it is absolutely possible. But still remember that when you're working with the Forge, especially when you have a small shop, pay attention to what's above it and what's behind it. Because likely you'll be nearby, close to it. So you'll be able to tell if it's putting off too much heat. But pay attention above because a lot of heat will go up and pay attention behind it because you want to make sure you don't burn anything down. Pretty obvious, but definitely something you need to say. So do some test runs once you get your forward setup. So this is just a basic idea of what you can do with a larger shop and what you can do with a smaller shop. It's up to you to figure out where you are able to work. But once you figure it out and he's good to set up, go ahead and send me a picture of it. If you want knives at yahoo.com or go out and ask me any questions. This is an open discussion kind of thing. I will help you out as best as I can. But all the good information here on Skillshare should be just enough to get you going. 8. Weather Considerations: Okay, now let's talk about whether consideration is, this is class 1, Lesson 8. This one's not super exciting, but it's definitely something you want to take into consideration because if things stop working, you want to know why. An example, let's say you live somewhere that was cold, right? And if you're foraging and all of a sudden, you notice that your propane, though it's full, is no longer producing the amount of heat. Our weather conditions in have a large impact on your work, whether it's hot or whether it's cold. An example is appropriate for very magical propane science, things that I don't fully understand. If you run a forge off of propane tank, what will happen in cold weather is that the propane tank will eventually start to ice up. That's the number of reasons. One of them, you have a small tank with a high displacement and it changes all kinds of stuff. And you'll start to lose power in your propane tank, which means that you're not forging within 15 minutes if it's cold enough. So how do you fix this? You can do this thing whether you say to dip it into warm water and keep you warm. Some psychopaths said, Well, just put a, put it next to your forage so that it heats it up. Like don't do that. Okay. That's asking for trouble. Don't put your propane take next to the open flame. Instead, gets some a bigger propane tank and consider keeping one of them inside. So if you have a larger tank, it'll take longer to ice up. And if you have two of them, then you can just switch them out and it will help out. Or we can just heat your shot, which I can't eat my shot because like you see, I've been a temporary shock right now. But so other cold weather considerations, your adhesive cannot properly set in cold temperatures and it'll be very difficult to work with in a cold temperature. So what you need to do is heat to glue up and then do all your clamping and work and then you've got bringing it inside. If you don't have a heat shock. Other things is that a lot of times machines don't like working and cold. So on the coldest of days, maybe consider if your machine is laboring, maybe consider not doing it. And also there's different things with Handel materials and fluctuation with temperatures. Especially things with like organic materials like wood. Wood can have a lot of fluctuation depending on the temperature and humidity and things like that. So I would recommend that if you don't have a nice sealed shop, store the majority of your handle materials inside, take them out and work on them, bring them back in sight, set mature. Because that will help you to limit a lot of that fluctuation. Also, there's ways to help ceiling. We'll get into that and the handle, the game section. So moving on to heat. Mostly heat has to do with keeping yourself safe and wasn't any ambulance for a long time. And I saw a lot of different things happen because of heat. You'll get nauseous, you'll get dizzy, you'll get sick, and you're standing next to a forge where you're working hard, sneaks up on you. So drink your water. Make sure you're not getting overheated. Bring a fan for some ventilation, do whatever you have to do in order to keep yourself safe. So not super interesting part of class, but definitely something to keep in mind because if you're forging, all of a sudden you take ice is up. You don't even understand what I don't want to see us for. What can't I forge? Plus because it's called up. So that's why. So ideally, get yourself either heated shop or a cool job, a fan, you know what I mean? So give yourself safe. And those are some considerations for whether things you might not even know. 9. What’s Next: Okay guys, we are now on less than nine of class one. We are getting close to ending class one, which means we're going into class 2. What does that mean? Now we've gotten through all the whole, all the introductory stuff of class one and class two is going to have to do with the basics. So less than one just took out the outline. You'll see that we're talking about the overview of knife making. Some of the most basic foundational things that got the introduction stuff done. So now let's talk about steel Joyce. What makes them kinda steal? Makes a good night. Now we'll talk about handle material. What kind of materials can you use to make a good handle? We'll talk about your hammers that you want to use, where to get them. We'll talk about your forages. What kind of forge can you get? Pretty much two options. We'll talk about who is good, what midway motivation, how to expect failure and grow from. It sounds kinda like, uh, you know, self-help thing. That's actually really important. So we'll talk about that envelope. Who do you think? How do I get an animal? I hope you find out how you can get an envelope hopefully in your local area. And a lot of times, depending on where you are, you can even get a starter anvil free. Something like a temple. Let's see. Then we're talking about woo, the soul of the blade, explaining the heat treat. Because you hear heat treat, There's actually three steps to heat treat. It's more than just the quench. And they're all just as important as the quench. So that is the soul of the blake, the most foundational fundamental part, making a shaped piece of metal into a functional blade. So we'll talk about that. And then I'm going to have a project to have you design your blade and show me so that I know it looks like before we get into that, let's talk about Class 1, assignment, motivation. 10. Project: Motivation: Okay, we are on, believe it or not, the last lesson of class one, motivation is our class project today. What is your reason? Now? The reason I want to discuss what your reason is, what your motivation is it because it's one of the biggest keys to success. And here's why you're learning so many new skills and your learning so many different things about the way mental moves about metallurgy, about the way that the oil affects the mental and about the way that your muscles learned to do these skills. You're learning so many things that are new that you are bound to have setbacks and failures. In fact, it's impossible to not have the setbacks. So it's the motivation that's going to help you to get past those challenges and take it from me because it's very true. Anyone who knows me well knows that there have been so many failures in my own path. I've broken so many blades, ruined handles. I've had to completely start over. I even bought pieces of equipment that were completely useless because I misunderstood what I was trying to do. And if I had not remembered the reason why I started it, Then I absolutely would have given up. And so the same thing for you. So it might be video games or it might be books, or it might be movies. Whatever it is that has inspired you to look into starting off as a blade Smith, then you need to hold onto that tight and remember it because it's really going to come in useful. Even with instruction, even with help, they're going to come up against some pretty serious roadblocks. I want to hear from you what those motivations are. So send me an email or comment in the discussion here on Skillshare and let me know what it is so that we can discuss it. And we can even use that to help shape your blade smithing. For instance, if you're more of a military person and you like what you see in the military that will shape the different forms of blades missing that you follow. But if you're more of a fantasy person, like we said, is going to shape how you progress. So send me an e-mail and definitely let me know what it is that you like about blade smithing, what started you off from that path, and who's going to help you so that we can better understand the direction that you're going to be going. And now remember, there's going to be challenges coming up class 2, we're going to find challenges about how to get all the things that we need. An a might be a little bit overwhelming. Class 3, we're going to start off with actually working in the shop. And there's going to be so many different things that you may not have anticipated. And that's okay. You're not trying to come into this as an expert, but instead, this is going to help you understand how to grow. So class one, I hope is helpful to give you the very basics as to what to expect from taking off as a blade Smith. And it helps sort of cut some of the mystery. I hope. Now class two is going to be very helpful. But as I said, the most important part, either as a beginner blade Smith, or even as an expert with years of experience, is to remember the reason why you love the craft that is going to give you absolute success in the long run. So, thank you very much for watching class 1. A really hope you enjoyed it. We got some really nice things to do, a lot of cool things ahead of us. So make sure you go along with class 2 so we can finally get prepared to go to work. And I really hope to see some of your progress. Thank you again, and I'll see you in the next class.