Valuable Forging Lesson...

Disco Stu

Disco Stu

Joined
Nov 9, 1999
Messages
1,137
OK, a few days ago I finally got into some serious forging. Everything was going great (steel was taking shape, gettin' the hang of hammering, blisters are finally healing nicely, learned how to remove steel from fire without burning armhair off) until this morning. Not ten minutes ago I learned an important lesson: If you let a section of your blade get too thin, it will melt. Right in the middle too. Really pissed me off. Pulled it out of the forge and the top five inches drooped down and fell off, setting the grass on fire. Thing is, I didn't think it was that thin. Maybe just overheated it?

Oh yeah, and I already have a customer. My neighbor saw my first knife and wants a similar one to use in the kitchen. So, I can get in some forging practice and make a few bucks too. :)
 
If I'm bringing a piece back up to heat, I watch it very closely.
It usualy only needs about 20 seconds.

and I'll bet you can figure out how I learned this:eek:
 
You want to back off on the heat when you get that thin. You can still forge when it's that thin--in fact, people who are a lot better than I am forge all the way to a finished knife including the edge. But you have to be very gentle with the heat. It works out because at that thickness you've done most of the heavy work and no longer need to move large amounts of steel.
 
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