Forging Brains Podcast

This week's guest and episode is a great one, John McNerney! Mostly everyone in the farrier world has probably seen or heard of the "Yukon Forge" line of tools throughout the past couple decades. But, something we learned in this conversation with John, is that he has the passion and dedication to serving his community by making it a safer place for those living in it when he decided...

It's got to be quite an experience to move away to another country halfway across the world. Stan Mullen started that journey at 17 years old searching for a horseshoeing school and after that he decided he was going to live in the United States after growing up in New Zealand previously. Not only has been shoeing horses full time, Stan has been making his presence known in the competitive hor...

We got the opportunity to learn from Dan Salcito about what makes a great hoof knife and how or why he got into the hoof knife game to create the best hoof knives on the market today! If you've been to your state horseshoeing contest or a World Championship Blacksmiths competition, then you've probably seen some of Dan's hoof knives because he is so supportive of this trade and generou...

We all have a unique story about how or why we got into shoeing horses initially. Recently I had the chance to sit down with three farriers that are in the early stages of their careers and what their experiences have been like so far, as well as, what they are doing to help ensure their chances of success. The three guys in this episode are Brandyn Davis, Trey Hayden, and Richard Puglisi. Brian S...

You want to be a world champ one day? Or just be a top competitor? Or be the best farrier you can be? Well, Austin Edens is all of those and more! Austin has won the World Championship Blacksmithing competition in Calgary in 2003, crowning him a World Champion. That's no easy task. This episode, Austin let us in on the things he had done in his career to get him to become a world champ. As wel...

A bunch of us got the opportunity to go compete in Edgewood, New Mexico at the World Championship Blacksmiths competition so we sat down to chat about what we experienced and learned about the trip. Midway through the episode, Ben Snure jumped on with us to share his experience about competing in the Novice Class too! We had a great time in New Mexico and also had a great time telling stories thro...

This past weekend I was at Troy Wood's shop practicing for the upcoming WCB contest in Edgewood, NM and we decided to sit down and do a podcast! We discussed some things about what we've learned in our practices together about the shoes and what we've got to be prepared for at the contest. Plus we BS'ed about other random stuff that's been going on in the world around us too. E...

Most people know that Tim "Hooter" Hoover ain't afraid to have a good time and share laughs, and that's exactly this episode went! Tim shared with us on how he acquired the nickname Hooter and it isn't what you were expecting or thinking. We got to talk about how he started his career shoeing horses and also some of the trials and tribulations he had to go through living in A...

Doug is a man of many talents. Although he has faced some challenges physically, he hasn't let that slow him down one bit when it comes to raising the bar and sharing knowledge about our trade to many people. Currently Doug is the resident farrier at Iowa State University and does A LOT of therapeutic shoeing there. Listen in to hear what he has to say about that. He also is a big advocate for...

I think It's safe to say this time of year gets busy for a lot of people, or more busy I should say, and we're trying to stay on top of weekly episodes! But we got together and chatted about what's been making us more busy this past month. Gavine went on a fishing trip and Riley went on a bachelor party bear hunt. Listen in to hear how those went! Also, if you're interested in some...

Caleb Payton has an eye and developed the skills to be a top farrier. Even though he doesn't live in a densely horse populated area, he still does the best job possible for each horse. What i found interesting is that he made the decision to step away from shoeing full time to become a police officer. You'll have to listen to the episode to hear why he made that decision! If you want a dea...

Carl Via is a busy man and we're glad he took some more time out of his busy life to do another episode with us! He's an AFA Tester and involved with a lot of pre-cert clinics, as well as, being on the current WCB Team and has been on the team for the past 4 years. So it was cool getting to hear a little more about Carl's busy life and also a little more about his family farm's his...

Man we really enjoyed sitting down with Travis Smith for this episode. Travis enlisted in the Marine Corps straight out of high school, served our country, and then decided he wanted to shoe horses after his time was up because he thought getting to wrestle with horses would be "fun" but quickly realized that there's so much more to it than just wrestling horses! You'll have to l...

Ben Snure is a man of many talents! He has a long background in ranching which in turn exposed him having to shoe the ranch horses out of necessity for the job and that is what peaked his interest in blacksmithing. Ben later found his passion for building tools but mostly for some of the finest handmade hammers on the market currently. This episode shows how someone with no initial background in b...

We're back! Two days late. Life's been busy and hectic but we got an episode out for you guys. Riley and Gavine sat down and just talked about what's been going on in our lives as of late and just some random conversations about this crazy messed up world we live in too. There's some shoemaking talk, toolmaking talk, and some social media buzz in here too. Enjoy this week's epi...

This was a great episode with Adam Fahr, who owns River Bottom Forge, and we're really glad we got to talk with him. Adam has achieved a lot of goals in his professional farrier career. He's been on the WCB Team, American Farrier's Team, and some others that have done really well, as far as his competitive horseshoeing goes. Adam talked about there was a time that competing wasn't...

On this week's episode of Forging Brains Podcast we sat down with Tyler Marshall, who resides in New Hampshire. If you follow Tyler on social media, then you know he can build and forge badass mini horseshoes! Other than building mini shoes, Tyler is a top farrier in our industry, as well as, a fierce top competitor in the competitive horseshoeing world. We got to know a little bit about Tyler...

I was in the presence of Mike Poe, Jason Smith and Kurt Fisk while we were at the benefit clinic in Oregon and figured we oughta sit down and record a podcast! We've had Mike and Kurt on the show already but not Jason, yet. It was cool to hear from Jason about his beginnings and achievements through his shoeing career. Mike shared some cool stories about his experiences on the WCB team and als...

This was a great episode with Phillip Box and Andrew Wells, not only to hear about how Phillip got into this trade and how he's taken it to another level, but the interesting thing is both these guys didn't have intentions of becoming farriers but yet, they both fully embrace it and have gone to another level in their careers. It's cool to hear that even though your sights aren't set on something,...

Live at the WCB Winter Clinic Riley sat down with the 2023 American Farrier's Team- Bodie Trnka, Chris Madrid, Daniel Jones, Sawyer Spradling and Tom Petersen to talk about their approach for the upcoming year competing as a team together. They talk about what they've learned so far about themselves as a team up to this point and things they will have to work on to improve and get better as a team...

We were fortunate to have Iain Ritchie and John Dixon come down south from Canada while we were having a team practice for the upcoming WCB contest "The Classic" to share their knowledge and criticism for us to become better prepared as a team. Top notch guys to lend their time out of their busy schedules to just to come help us! Says a lot about who they are, as respectable men. So thank you for...

While at the WCB Winter Clinic Billy Klapper, Terry Stever and Jim Poor were present and had a great opportunity to sit down and hear stories from the legendary bit and spur maker Billy Klapper and Terry Stever who so many people have brought up who they look up to in their careers over the years. It was great having Jim Poor steer the ship and hear many stories. 

We are "Live" at the WCB Winter Clinic! We got to sit down with John Harshbarger who owns Well-Shod Farrier Supply and got to hear from him about how he and his partner Timmy Snider started the supply house in a feed store and how it has now grown to a massive farrier supply that is known worldwide. John also shared with us some business tips that might be helpful for others out there and how they...

Over the weekend Troy Wood came over to my place to practice shoes for the upcoming World Championship Blacksmiths (WCB) Classic Competition. While Troy was here  we thought it'd be a great time to sit down and do a podcast with him. Since we last had Troy on Forging Brains Podcast he was competing for a spot on the WCB Team, but now he has earned himself a spot on that highly prestiged team!...

This week's guest, Terry Dokken, has multiple talents and passions! Terry's passion for the farrier trade and being an excellent musician have always pushed him to be great at both, even though, it may be hard to juggle between the two with other interests and family life. This was a great episode being able to chat with Terry about how he runs his business, shoeing different disciplines of horses...