craftsman journey

A quick summary of me. I am a 25 year old Blacksmith and recently achieved my journeyman’s degree here in my home country Austria. After a lot of detours (mostly university) I started an apprenticeship at the age of 22. I quit my job because my former employer and his company were literally hell (for example, my boss would stand beside me and would stop the time it took me to forge 100 coat hangers etc.) and in addition the love of my life suddenly left me after 5 years. So moved back to my hometown ( for the apprenticeshipI moved to another part of the country and lived pretty much alone for 3 years during the week while my ex-girlfriend was studying at the university, had neither friends nor family, only work).
I am a trained metal worker but not that much of a blacksmith, although I won a few prices during my apprenticeship, and that is something I want to change. The trade itself is slowly fading away in my country although there are still some institutions left. There are just a few shops that do blacksmithing exclusively (I am talking about blacksmithing not metal work like steel constructing frames or simple hand railing for flats etc.) and those who do can hardly pick up another "unskilled" worker.
So the thing is, i don’t have anything left in my life that would keep me here and furthermore working in metal construction would be hell for me (no offense to fellow welders and so on, it is just not the right job for me), but blacksmithing on the other hand is more than fulfilling. Aside from the general balcksmith, the bladesmith as a job nearly completely vanished from our job market, those who do are very few self taught or blacksmiths who took up the trade and this is what I intend to do. But before I can open a shop I want to learn from mastersmiths how things are done. In addition to that I want to attend a sort of “metal-design college” in Germany when I am “finished” with my travels, or I will do it the other way around I don’t know yet

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if anyone is intersted here's an example of my work (it was the competition piece we had to make for the country championship "candleholder" made out of steel and brass)

That's pretty cool OP. Mind elaborating a bit? I'm from Germany myself so I have a pretty good idea what a Walz is but I'd be interested to know how the tradition has survived till the present-day. Are you gonna do it the hardcore way, just walk on your own feet for the three full Wanderjahre?

As far as Latvia is cocerned:
>How is the country in general?
Latvia is a comfy country, cheap as fuck and very sparsely populated as long as you avoid Riga and the coastal areas. Tons of nature, beautiful mixed forest. No mountains to speak of though, so hopefully you can deal with that an an Austrian.

>Are you open for foreigners?
In my experience absolutely (as long as you're white that is). I only went to the Eastern part of the country though where there's hardly any tourism. Barely anyone speaks English there, almost everyone knows Russian.

>Why would you recommend your country and
why would you not?
Latvia probably has the worst roads of the Baltic states although Lithuania isn't far behind. I went there on a long bicycle trip this year so that kinda sucked but if you, as i presume, intend to walk, that should be of no concern to you. On the bright side there's also very little traffic which is nice.
The villages and towns tend to be ugly and run-down although they have their own rustic charme.
Aggressive dogs are a major issue; a lot of people in the Baltic states don't see a need/are too poor to build fences around their property which means their dogs are free to roam and consider pretty much the entire village their territory. Those fuckes will bark at you before you can even see them and will gladly run after you for a couple of hundred meters before they get bored.

>>1150930
Canadian welder here.
Considering you're a blacksmith you're better off staying in Europe unless you manage to get an internship or something with a master bladesmith.

There's a reason most of our few blacksmiths do their training in Europe.

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>>1150947
OP here, hello fellow Germanian ;)
No I i am not really into the whole traditional thing because i believe (as far as my humble knowledge goes) you would have to join a guild and as you say, go on through 3 years of constant travel and work not to return home for that time span (as far as i remember no 50km radius of your hometown). For as i said i don't know yet if i apply/attend to that college first or do my travling year/s. But i don't really know for sure if the "blacksmith walz" is still around, for carpenters it is that i am sure of!
But during my apprenticeship i never heard from any coworkers or other apprentices that they know of any "Wandergesellen".

As i said i don't really have anything left here, i can deal with "no mountains" for a bit because it also draws me to the sea (worked as a "sailor" on a passenger boat before) and the woods (thats why latvia would really be cool in my opinion). What i aim for is to learn to make and craft old metal tools for different purposes like woodworking but also to learn more about fusing metal and wood (i.e. choosing the right wood for an axe handle) and maybe a bit of leathercraft.
I considered maybe using workaway.com for locations i could go to ("work" there for my living and seek out the local blacksmith for training and help)
thanks for your response!
if you'd like to know more just ask!

>pic related a bottle holder I made from stainless steel with a apple wood cladding

>>1150950
OP here
For Canada i thought as much. I've heard from a colleague that a guy from his former class went to Canada as a metal worker and is know collecting shit loads of money, because our "training" is considered to be of a pretty high standard. But as i said i just heard that and can't really confirm.
For the blacksmiths and or bladesmiths on the continent of North America i know that there is an Assosiation called the "American Bladesmith Society" a few of those mastersmiths are also living in Canada what i know of and a few other organisations. But for a training or degree you'd have to pay good money.

Thanks for the reply