None of this would have happened were it not for cable TV.

Like many guys, I’m a skilled — one might even say professional — channel surfer. I’m not interested in what’s on so much as what else is on.

Some years ago, during one of my surfing sessions, I stumbled across a show called “Forged in Fire.”

The show immediately caught my attention, mainly because it involved fire. A quartet of blacksmiths take such things as a pound of steel ball bearings or random car parts and forge them into a type of blade that had been chosen by a trio of judges.

I found the process to be both fascinating and primal. The smiths take a wad of worthless steel and turn it into something useful and artistic.

Which got me to thinking: I have a shop, an anvil, a cutting torch, and a chunk of cutting edge that had been excised from my loader. Maybe I could take those elements and turn them into something useful and perhaps even artistic.

Despite a total lack of training or experience, I forged ahead with an attempt to forge a blade.

Why?

That’s good question. My wife and I already have all the knives that we need. I guess it’s like asking why the chicken crossed the road: because it looked like fun.

The first step was to cut a small chunk of steel from the big chunk of steel.

But what size should it be?

Using the time-tested method I call “by guess and by golly” I torched off a judicious piece of the 5/8″-thick steel.

Then began the process of forging it into a blade. This can only be described as “heat, beat, and repeat.” And repeat again and again. It’s a great way to channel your anger and work out your frustrations.

“Cut me off in traffic, will you!” Whank! “Honk at me at a red light, did you?” Clank! “Yell out your car window that I’m a lousy driver, will you?” Wham!

At the start of the blade-making process, I reckoned that I had harvested enough steel to produce a paring knife. As the steel grew thinner and longer it became apparent that I might have a steak knife on my hands. Then it became clear that I was headed for machete territory.

At that point, I decided to put a point on things and aim for a Bowie knife. And that style of blade was not named for the famous British rocker. I had to look it up.

On “Forged in Fire,” two finalist blacksmiths go to their home forges and make a humungous and artsy blade such as a samurai sword or a bearded axe that would be a fit for Paul Bunyan.

The smiths accomplish this feat in half an hour — even less if you take out the commercials. This gives one the impression that making something similar might take a similar amount of time. Ha!

Among my shop tools is a belt sander that we inherited from my stepfather-in-law, Duane Drewes. Duane was born during the Great Depression and was the kind of guy who would go to the landfill and come home with a bigger load than when he left.

I think Duane would be pleased that I’m recycling something old and worthless into something that might prove useful — and I don’t mean me. I can see him grinning at that joke whenever I fire up his belt sander, which appears to have been manufactured half a century ago and squeals like a goosed bat.

Once I got the blade roughed out, I turned my attention to the handle. We have a ton of well-seasoned ash firewood in the basement, and I’m attracted to the notion of turning firewood into a knife handle.

I decided to use my table saw to speed up this process. As any carpenter or cabinetmaker will tell you, once material is removed, you can’t put it back. I wasted several hours turning big pieces of firewood into smallish ones. I would then realize that I’d removed too much material and mutter some choice words. Thankfully, nobody was there to hear me. And we have a copious supply of firewood.

I told my wife about my knife-making tribulations.

“If you aren’t learning, you aren’t living,” she said.

If that’s the case, I’ve been doing a lot of living lately.

A hobby might be described as activity wherein you place a set of problems before yourself and attempt to solve them. And you do so voluntarily! Without pay!

This blade-making endeavor is proving awfully frustrating for a hobby. But maybe I can turn it into something profitable.

Anyone need some smallish pieces of ash wood?

— Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.