https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gz4Ezxl9E0
I don't know about you lot but I've been looking at various stuff to keep me as occupied as possible especially with all the crap going on with the American elections currently. I like making stuff a lot, keeps me happy, I want to get good at string among other things so I can maybe make bows from scratch or other stuff.
Yes, shockingly the UK has not clamped down on archery, they only seem to draw the line at crossbows and predictably despite archery regularly being used throughout the ages as an effective weapon their reasoning is about as retarded as you'd expect but I may as well take advantage of the loophole and have some fun shooting at targets in my back garden.
I also definitely want to have a go at blacksmithing at some point, I'm just trying to think about a low tech DIY setup that will work in the rain.
I had a friend my last year of high school that had gotten into blacksmithing. I messed around with it a bit with him, it's interesting for sure. If I were to go towards metalworking, it would probably be machine shop stuff, pick up an old manual mill and lathe. I don't know what I'd make though. If anything I should get a welder and get those skills back, I haven't welded in probably a decade.
I am surprised you can still have a bow in the UK. It would be fun, but I don't find enough time to go shoot guns as it is. I guess I could shoot a bow more easily in my yard.
The good thing about bows as well is they're near silent, for target practice I could just whip up some hay or grass dummies so even the impact wouldn't make any noise. I remember watching a video about electric off road motorbikes and the guy in the video made a perfectly valid point where because of how silent they are it meant they could muck around well after regular hours without ruining anyone's day which I found interesting. Something the fuckers in Bradford could maybe pick up on but they won't because they're inconsiderate shits who like fucking around on the roads at all hours.
I've also inadvertently been looking at electrical music instruments and plugging those straight into your headphones not a music guy at all but I found it amazing you can even do that these days. It means you can have stealth hobbies without attracting any attention. What the neighbours don't know won't bother them.
I have a reel lawn mower. I could mow my lawn at three in the morning and my neighbors wouldn't even know.
lolz joking aside I wish I could get some kind of low noise blender if I ever got in the mood for milkshakes at 3:00am.
I know Forged in Fire definitely made blacksmithing look interesting.
Machine Shop workers skew old. Like, retirement old. It's an incredibly solid choice for a career at this point, if only because the skillset you could potentially learn now will be incredibly in demand 10-20 years from now due to attrition in the field.