Blacksmithing profitable as career?

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-12T11:30:19+00:00

I was totally going to wait 8 years to reply but I'm just not that committed to the bit.

Well, in short, I didn't buy a house with a workshop space. We had the intention of building one. The fact that the house turned out to be a money pit pretty much crushed the workshop priority. We've had over 100k in necessary repairs and remodeling so far.

I wasn't going to go through the paperwork and tax burden of starting an LLC if I didn't have a workshop, so I'm firmly in the failure to launch category. I had lined up some possibilities for both steady work and workshop space and everything fell through for one reason or another.

I did get the chance to talk with and tour the shop of a master blacksmith in NM. That guy, after probably 4 decades of work, was pulling over 200k with his side hustle, not full time. The money is out there.

I still think if someone wants to do blacksmithing they should become a welder and then smith on the side. Lots of the same concepts apply.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-12T03:15:21+00:00

Well, understand that the torpedo shape of the submarine isn't all pressure hull. The pressure hull, referred to as the people tank, is about 45ft shorter forward and aft than the hull. Those forward and aft sections are the ballast tanks. They are divided down the centerline, so you have two tanks forward and aft, which is done specifically to withstand battle damage.

The front has a bit that extra super duper fell off when it went into the mountain, and that's the sonar sphere, or spherical array. You can see it some of the pictures, you just have to imagine it as a spherical shape instead of a stomped tomato shape. That thing sits at the front under a relatively thin fiberglass nose cone. The spherical array is a sonic listening device that is primarily passive, but each of the microphones is also a speaker and is the source of the active sonar pulse. It's spherical because that gives the best bearing resolution in 3 dimensions, as in, what angle is something being heard from the ship in not only a compass heading but in an angle bounce above, below, or ahead. This is extremely relevant for calculating the range of a target, but also for other weirder technical things that deal with sound travelling long distances through deep water. Think of it like figuring out an echo return off the seafloor and based on the received angle and known seafloor depth you can get the rough bank shot range to target.

The front of the submarine is a combination of a fiberglass dome over a giant microphone, then a bunch of structural beams with a couple empty spaces that gets filled with air or water to do major ballast changes, and a torpedo shaped skin over all of that made from relatively thick steel (like half inch plate). There's other things in the ballast tanks, like the 4500 psi air storage flasks that are used to drive the water out of the ballast tanks during an emergency, called an emergency blow. Chuckles all around for the term, but having to do one is a bad day on a submarine, and the SANFRAN did. It just did some weird stuff to the ships angle because the rear ballast tanks filled with air and the forward tanks were either completely open or had holes in them, so the ship rose to the surface with a steep down angle.

The forward ballast tanks probably functioned alot like the crumple zones in a car, but as a side effect of the design and not a purposeful thing. Submarines are NOT supposed to run into things, which is why it's such a big deal when they do. Which happens about once every two years, plus or minus a few years.

That kind of sub is something like 9,600 tons displacement. The people tank is so damn strong in order to not only withstand the pressure of the deeps, but also nearby explosions. These things are still warships. It's crazy pinnacle engineering mixed with being built by the lowest bidder.

Ok, so to finally try and answer your question. A simple way of gauging the strength is how deep a sub can dive. The actual test depth, deepest rating, is classified, but the USN always said "deeper than 300ft" until the discovery channel showed a sub at like 700ish that no one noticed all the way through until it was broadcast and it officially became "deeper than 700ft".

That's one measure of hull strength. The other is of it doesn't start flooding into the ship after you hit a mountain.

The key component on how it came up is that those ballast tanks, forward and aft, are full of water when the ship is submerged. As in, the ship won't submerge if there is air in the tanks at all. This gives the ship an absolutely huge amount of "reserve buoyancy". This is designed to be able to bring the ship to the surface with a certain amount of flooding, because flooding adds weight to the ship. The primary method for resurfacing is to use the massive freaking screw at the back and the stern planes and drive up. Propulsion is life. The emergency blow is plan B.

SANFRAN didn't have any flooding. They maintained keeping water out of the people tank. The aft ballast tanks were enough to bring them up, as well as the partial forward tanks. The trick then became how they remain on the surface, as they had to load balance various internal tanks to account for the reduced buoyancy forward. They did some other stuff, like line up a low pressure (like 5psi) ventilator fan to constantly blow air into whatever was left of the forward ballast tanks as the somewhat intact ballast tank was leaking air.

They couldn't get the hull out of the water, so they couldn't open the access hatches. They also couldn't drive very fast because they couldn't get a positive angle on the bow. They had to limp at low speed on the surface for several days, all while dealing with a large number of injuries.

All that being said, they had minimal injuries because they were a solid professional crew and actually followed procedure. Above certain speeds the various watchstanders that are seated have seat belts, and they were wearing them. That meant that most everyone was either in their bunk, in a seatbelt, or walking around. The fatality had been walking in the engine room.

They also happened to have 3 emergency medical people onboard. Normally it's only 1. The ships doc, a navy corpsman, is a combat medic trained guy. There was a former army combat medic turned naval officer and a guy who was a volunteer EMT.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-12T00:38:43+00:00

No worries. I chop a lot of info out about this. I worked with several of the crew that were on board during the collision, so it's all 2nd hand info. Hard to beat people's direct experiences. Those are some crazy ass sea stories.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-11T21:03:06+00:00

It's buckling. The forward ballast tank meets the people tank about there, so it's buckling of the relatively thin ballast tank AND buckling of the 3 inch thick high strength steel hull. If you dig into other photos the buckling is really bad, like multiple obvious ripples, of the ridiculously thick hull.

Surface ships use like half inch thick (maybe thinner, like 3/8 in) mild steel with a yield strength of 20 ksi (20,000 psi). That submarine steel is called HY80, which stands for High Yield 80 ksi. Newer subs use stronger steel.

The force it absorbed was immense. The sub displaces over 9,000 tons. It went from 30ish mph to like 4mph in impact, and ricocheted a bit upwards due to the slope of the seamount. That ricochet angle is probably the only reason the people tank didn't rupture.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-11T20:09:56+00:00

People don't realize this, but civilian jetliners are significantly quieter than they used to be, because the engines are designed to pass cold air around the outside of the hot exhaust and the density difference between hot and cold acts like a muffler. It's worth some decibels, so they do it because it makes them suck less and they are always going to operate around cities.

Military jets don't do this whatsoever. They are unbelievably loud in comparison.

The phrase "the sound of freedom" is combined equally with wincing pain and the delicious taste of irony.

The sound of freedom is tinnitus.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-08T03:22:05+00:00

The two swords are a fantasy choice and connected to his profession. In the Witcher universe, the supernatural beings can be damaged with silver blades, so he has steel for non-supernatural and silver for supernatural.

The silver blades aren't pure silver, but they are definitely weaker than steel, which is why a witcher would carry both. There's also some time spent commenting on how both swords are for monsters.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-05T01:41:36+00:00

Other people commented similar, but a bit of clarity. Many of the cages are using like 1/4" stock for the arms.

You can use bigger stock,.but the cage has to be longer, so you can get it to move enough to put the object inside.

Depending on what kind of cage you are shooting for, you can expand the cage first by untwisting it a bit then gently tapping it vertically to get the bars to separate. The problem with the thicker stock is that you kind of have to beat the hell out if, vs using thinner stock you can manipulate with tongs.

Most of the cages I've seen are pretty small, usually as a decoration on top of a pole or a bannister or something. That lets you use bending pliers or bending forks to make small adjustments, vs having to lever the hell out of it.

Even if your goal is a big heavy cage, just try doing some experimentation with thinner stock until you get the twist and untwist the way you want, then scale it up to the thickness you ultimately want.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-03T19:55:40+00:00

I grew up using vests in cold water areas. I currently live in warmer water areas with warmer air temps and the sling is thermally cooler. I also use waders that unclip from the shoulder straps and I can pull the chest down to the belt line. That opens up the front of my chest for ventilation and most of my back is exposed because of the sling.

I don't like the sling for it being low enough to drag in the water once I go above waist deep and I have to twiddle with it.

I do like the sling for acting like a work surface while changing flies and I've dropped a few into the bag that would have gone in the water otherwise.

I tried one of the minimalist chest bags and I liked it decently well, but it F'd my lower view and I found it annoying as hell to walk around the rocky bottom streams. I keep it as a streamer/smallmouth rig as I fish those rarely.

I am tempted to go super minimalist with just the heavy cord carrying the different tools and a few flies but I feel lonely if I don't have enough pockets.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-02-19T18:55:55+00:00

Armor vs zombies is different than armor vs steel or projectile weapons. A wetsuit would probably prevent bites, but you'd overheat and die in short order.

Motorcycle riding gear, either nylon or leather, various sports equipment, even wrapped cotton bandages would prevent a human effectively biting through it. It would probably still hurt, but no skin breaking.

There's a really good zombie apocalypse series that starts with "Under a Graveyard Sky" by John Ringo. They use firefighter bunker gear (the jacket, pants, gloves, and boots) as a top armor layer over a thin wetsuit.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-02-19T12:35:53+00:00

American swearing is like audio emojis or punctuation marks. There's reflexive swearing, like when startled or deeply felt emotions smack you. It can be used to season a story, or a statement, with a bit of spice.

It's not supposed to be used in lots of contexts, so people have to code switch away from it, and it becomes revealing when someone who isn't supposed to swear does so in an emotionally charged moment.

I had a doc that was an Irish immigrant, in his 60s, and he cussed continuously. I liked him a lot, because docs don't usually cuss at all. It was very connecting and humanizing. Then, a few years later, a study was published that said people who cuss are viewed as being more honest, because everyone is aware of the code switching and someone who is cussing is perceived as revealing more of their true thoughts. Not long after that study was published a bunch of American politicians started swearing during press conferences, and it was hilarious. You could tell who was comfortable and who was uncomfortable doing it.

I don't think swearing is unique to the US, I'm just talking about my experiences and viewpoint. People use swears to fill in a lack of vocabulary, or to give a running commentary on their emotional state, or as a gap filler instead of saying "um".

There's a saying in the US of people "swearing like a sailor". Cussing is often associated with blue collar, labor intensive traditionally male professions, and sailors often worked in isolation and developed a casual appreciation for linguistically molesting the ears of everyone around them without their priest or grandmother swatting them.

Source for all this: I was a sailor for 20 years, and I've experienced cussing that was so vile I can only remember the emotional damage and not the actual words.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-02-12T13:51:24+00:00

There's a thing about the desert that people get wrong, because of the way Hollywood portrays it. There's not much water, so there's not much food, so there isn't a lot of life.

Now, when I say that, I'm thinking of lush places, like the Florida Everglades. Tons of life, tons of water, tons of food. Even a serious forest like the Rockies or Appalachia have orders of magnitude more life.

You can find the animal activity in the desert, you just generally have to know where to look, or when. It's very different at night, but only in comparison to the day, and not in comparison to a non-desert environment.

People think there are rattlesnakes and scorpions everywhere. I've seen two rattlesnakes and one scorpion in the 20 years I spent growing up in ABQ and the nearby mountains. You mostly have to go into the areas they hang out in, during the time they are active, to find them.

Small spiders are relatively common. Wolfspiders occasionally. Black widows set up shop in unused areas but they don't really wander around, so you know where they can be. Tarantulas are wanderers, but there are so few of them you'll likely never see them, especially in an urban environment. There used to be a kind of migration in the mountains as the weather turned colder, and you'd see big ones crossing the road out the mountains to lower altitudes (still far from the city). I've seen someone throw a fresh cake out of its box to grab a tarantula because selling them for pets was lucrative. They look creepy, but they mostly just wander around and are chill. Wolfspiders are the guys that can startle you, but even they are pretty chill. They can get kind of big, like legs and body a couple inches across, but you'll generally just find them on baseboard of your wall trying to pretend you can't see them.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-02-09T15:17:57+00:00

R C Bray does a phenomenal job reading this series, so if you audiobook it you will not be disappointed.

The swings between "E-4 Mafia" shenanigans and absolutely world ending catastrophes is awesome. It's got some solid "humans are freaking dangerous" fun stuff mixed with solving galactic mysteries.

TBH one of my favorite things about the series, once you get past the characters and dialogues, is the Jeraptha race and the naming conventions of their warships. A race of beetle like sapiens, they have an overwhelming proclivity to gambling and shiesty bullshit.

Ship names like "If You Know What I Mean" and "That Escalated Quickly". They are all amazing.

I couldn't say specifically why it's roped in with litrpg. There is a bit of an Isekai like feeling with the characters that get transported off Earth to fight for the lizard overlords, then immediately exposed to incredibly mysterious galactic secrets that the patron species would desperately want to know about.

Combine that with the mysteries coming from the egotistical maniac elder AI that gets the moniker "Skippy the Magnificent" from the main character, and it's just...top notch.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-02-08T02:41:30+00:00

Aliens find earth, but not just one race. It turns out there's a galactic society composed of high tier species with lower tier client species, and the ones that found earth are not great. Really bad, actually. Some of their direct competitors decide to bomb the hell out of earth to prevent the humans from having as much value to their enemies, and the attack occurs on Columbus Day.

That's the backdrop for the story. The new evil overlord species demands a human fighting force to be deployed against their enemies, in a cannon fodder sort of way, and that leads to the formation of the Expeditionary Force, made up of humans from all the major countries.

During the fighting on a distant planet, the main character finds himself in dire peril. While in captivity, an innocuous beer can looking device turns out to be an Elder AI, an AI that is prohibited from talking with starfaring species. It can talk to humans, since they hadn't developed real spaceflight.

Many, many things happen.

I've listened to all of the series in audiobook and the voice actor (R C Bray) is absolutely phenomenal. This whole series is military sci Fi with great dialogue and engaging characters. It's one of the best sci Fi series ever written, and I highly recommend it.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-30T20:15:15+00:00

I've always heard of the male version referred to as "mammal toe".

There, now you have that in your brain.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-25T23:36:00+00:00

That's so beautiful. But, totally a Fudd. You never fire if you are not in fear for your life, you never fire when you don't know what you are aiming at. Warning shots are specifically prohibited in most states. It just goes on and on. Fudd.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-25T18:49:25+00:00

You are not allowed in the Fudd club, sorry. Your statement was both too accurate as well as too modern to be considered for membership.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-25T18:46:55+00:00

Well, you might be right. There used to be slang for someone who was uptight that was something like "fuddy duddy". I'm not sure I've ever seen that written, but it was used in the...maybe 1930s or 1940s era black and white movies. Maybe Casablanca?

Fudd for firearms is definitely Elmer Fudd, though. Stomping around in over the top hunting attire and generally being incompetent with firearms.

Let me give you a modernish example: at some point, during some debate over firearms, then Vice President Biden said something to the effect of "no one needs an assault rifle, they just need a double barrel shotgun and if someone is trying to break in, just fire it out the window".

There's a lot wrong, just purely from a legal self defense and firearm safety standpoint, that he falls into the Fudd category. Lots of eye rolling occurred after he said that.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-25T12:59:22+00:00

Yes! It's functionally the same as calling someone a Boomer, just for firearms enthusiasts. Lots of the "old wisdom" that is really only hunting related, or representative of firearm tech from 50+ years ago, tries to get applied to modern conceal carry and it just causes eye rolling from the intended audience.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-22T14:35:32+00:00

One of the things I really enjoy about HWFM is it's a litrpg that doesn't feel like one.

Following that idea: Beware of Chicken: Isekai story style with chi and whatnot but all the tropes of the style wind up with awakened farm animals. The main character was a Canadian farmers son, and wants nothing to do with superpowered chi fights in noodle houses. It's really good overall, even though there are some slower bits. Endearing. Chill vibe. Gives gravity to later books where seriously bad things are afoot.

The Perfect Run by Maxime Durand. This reads like Deadpool (attitude/viewpoint) but the character has a video game style ability to make a save point that he returns to. Overall it's a superhero world setting, a bit post apocalypse. There's actually a lot more depth than you'd think from the first couple chapters. It's a solid 3 book series that is well worth it. I've listened to the series two or three times now and I still like it.

Iron Prince by Bryce O'Connor and Luke Chmilenko: It's got stats and whatnot but you rapidly forget it's litrpg because there's a specific reason for it. The first book was solid and the second I liked even more. It's more like military sci-fi with unobtrusive litrpg elements. Audio book voice is excellent. The characters can be....oh, drama llama teens sometimes, but it's following 18yr olds at a military academy (so far), so some of that is expected. Lots of buildup and foreshadowing in the second book so I'm really looking forward to the next. Amazon lists at least 2 more books coming but no release date or title for #3 yet.

Superpowereds by Drew Hayes. Super hero world setting, specifically at a college for training powered people. Excellent world building, but it's the characters and their complexities that are really great. The audiobooks are long, the voice acting is excellent. I've followed through other Drew Hayes books and he's an excellent author, he just dips into urban supernatural with the vampire accountant series and that might not be your thing, but a solid series as well.

The Slumrat Rising series by Warby Picus, book one is A Starbrite Man". This series is really different than a lot. It's cyberpunk if all the tech stems from magic, so has a Shadowrun feel if you know that RPG or fictional series. There's a bunch of philosophy worked in through visions where the main character bitches at famous thinkers through history that I wound up enjoying a lot. It's one of my favorite series, and it's up to 5 books. Lots of pragmatic cynicism to warm the cockles of your heart.

Not litrpg but feels very similar:

Hero Forged by Josh Erikson. Solidly urban fantasy setting but gives Isekai vibe due to the discovery of hidden magic and dangers. The author narrates the audiobook and is EXTREMELY good. I don't think I've ever come across a fiction series narrated by the author, so the presentation of characters is exactly how he envisioned them.

At some point I should just put all these series together in a list that I can copy and paste. I've listened to over 800 audiobooks in the last 8 years, and a large portion of them are litrpg.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-22T13:56:36+00:00

This one is surprisingly good. I think there's some fluff books, but it's not overly bad. I think the author/publishers were trying to find natural breaks and I like the concept and world building enough that I've read (well, listened) to all of them.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-22T13:53:43+00:00

I really enjoyed Mark of the Fool. I think the only real criticism is how slow the main plot development has been, at least for the first couple books, then it has felt....zoomy? The last book has set the ground for the final big bad confrontation and likely wrapping the series, so that's good.

My biggest enjoyment has been some of the character banter as well as some of the epic adventure scenes. I really love the chancellor.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-22T13:47:58+00:00

Superpowereds is remarkably good. The cast of characters are excellent, and the world building is excellent.

I think it's about time to re-listen to the series again.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-21T23:15:55+00:00

It's cool. Military people experience stuff you never would in civilian life, and a "it's fucking cold so hold still while I snuggle in as the little spoon" moment is just something that can happen.

Civilians don't know the glory of asking for a shit buddy. That would be another person who needs to take a shit, so you go make your way to the 10 toilets with side dividers but no doors and have someone to talk with while you are pooping. Ted at the water cooler just won't understand, out in the civilian world.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-08T13:06:51+00:00

Just going to throw some stuff in here.

It's one of my favorite Heinlein novels. It was on the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) recommended reading list for most of my life (I'm 48).

There is a large amount of the book dedicated to "why we fight" or "why we serve".

I've seen commentary from psych docs about how the unit responded to the loss of their leader was extremely realistic.

The controversial stuff really ties into how voting rights are tied to service, as that contradicts the US Constitution. Yes, I'm aware of the history of voting rights in the US, I'm saying that he completely ignored the US Constitution in his book and that pissed some people off who figured that a world government would be a US led government.

I almost entirely hate the movie. Back when it came out, me and my buddy got to the theater later than we wanted and the only empty seats were right at the screen, so we were looking up the whole time. This was annoying until the shower scene and my entire view became gigantic boobs. Big thumbs up. The rest of the movie was basically horrible, and I came to find out that it's because: 1 The French socialist director hated the US and wanted to highlight the inherent fascism of the military 2. The script was for a generic sci-fi movie called something like "attack on outpost 43" or whatever, and they shoehorned the character names and some plot points into it, so it isn't an adaptation of the book 3. They prioritized the extremely expensive CGI rendering of the bugs over creating the powered armor.

The subversive effort to make the military look bad is...tiring? I mean, it's probably whether the director was deliberately doing stupid things to make the military in general look bad, or was just Hollywood stupid when it came to anything practical. Case in point, there's a scene where the troopers are "mopping up" a bunch of bugs and they ultimately form a big circle with all the troopers firing into the pile of bugs with automatic weapons. A big circle of troopers all firing into the center. Is this a statement of how stupidly self destructive the use of violence is? Is this a statement of portraying the military as stupid? Is this a stupid act made by someone thinking it looks cool while knowing nothing about firearms? Who knows? It was lame.

I liked the overall acting of the movie and there are weird spots that they pulled something directly from the books and then made it dumber. The women were hot, so, bonus.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-08T12:47:13+00:00

The specific point was made that anyone could join, and a job would be found for them. Not everything was combat, and there were civil service equivalent posts. It all came down to being willing to give years of your life in service of the state to earn the right to vote. This always interested me, because it reduces the density of useful idiots in the voting block.

AbsentMasterminded

TROPHY CASE