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I’m Ben Rogers.
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I’m 19 years old.
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I’m living in Durango, Colorado right now.
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And I’m a blacksmith and metalworkers.
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The main thing that I’m doing right now.
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We are sitting in the maker lab right now,
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which is where I do all of my work out of.
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It’s a really awesome
space, member driven.
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Allows a pretty sweet opportunity
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for anybody who doesn’t have access
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to a shop like this of their
own to come use this space.
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So we’re sitting in the
metal shop right now,
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which is where I spend most of my time.
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My main bread and butter,
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I guess I could say, is
the forge and the anvil.
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These are like my
definitely favorite tools
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to use in this whole space.
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And that’s how I move
the bulk of the metal.
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And then a lot of the
refining work I do with files,
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some of the grinders.
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The only teacher I’ve had is the internet
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and trial and error.
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I’ve pretty much learned it all on my own,
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which has been a super,
super fun and rewarding.
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I like using reclaimed
materials for a lot of reasons.
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I love the features that
some pieces will have,
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I love the sustainability aspect of it
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and the price is very, very nice.
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You can get pretty
infinite amount of metal
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out of things like leaf
springs from a car or coils.
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And most of the time you
can get that for free.
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Exotic woods can be pretty
unsustainable to like harvest,
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but if I can get little chunks of it
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from projects that other
people have done secondhand,
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what most people would see as trash,
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it’s pretty cool to be able to turn those
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into accent pieces on a knife
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or on any other project I’m working on.
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My main goal is just
dialing in my like craft.
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Cause as much as I want to get
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a ton of pieces into people’s
hands as fast as possible,
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I’m really trying to focus on
the basis of this is the craft
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and is all the details
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and hand work that goes into all of it.
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So the goal is just to keep
learning piece by piece
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and keep enjoying it because I do.
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This is such a playful space for me.
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Just keep learning and loving the process.
