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Hey, newbie here, and I was wondering if you may have any tips for me. My thing is, I'm very much into bladesmithing, I've got a bit of a feel for the metal, but I've had NO teaching besides this wonderful place and youtube. Yeah. However, there is a local bladesmith who just passed his Master Smith testing and is now an MS of the ABS. I e-mailed him shortly before he took the test to see if he had open-shop demonstrations or that sort of thing. He asked my dad to call him, and long story short, I got an awesome (two-hour long ) tour of his shop. So he was talking a bit how he got started, and how his teacher told him to buy equipment and forge about five "throwaway" knives, to show his dedication. He was basically hinting this me. Since then, I've built a propane forge (it's not two million degrees, but it gets my steel about orange-yellow XP), forged two knives (technically about four, but the others I messed up, as in snapped), found a sledgehammer head for an anvil, and saved up about $400 for a grinder (he recommended starting with a disc sander). So my question to you: what can I do to "get on his radar", show him that I'm dedicated, and that lessons would be worth his time? And as a side question, what do you think a two-four hour lesson would cost?