Thread: Steel Ordering
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Old 04-19-2017, 06:24 AM
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Crex Crex is offline
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While there is nothing wrong with coal/charcoal forging, definitely has it's place with larger items and speciality items as well as being more "romantic" (in a primitive sense), it does have it's drawbacks in the learning curve and time consumption sense (as stated above). I started forging this way, but had an excellent teacher in my Dad - he made and repaired mining tools for the gold hunters in the Dahlonega Gold Rush in NGa when he was still a youngster. Still, I was more about making knives than playing with fire and gravitated to propane forges after I learned how to make them off Ron Reil's site way back when. Propane was so natural for me, as Ray said light her up and be forging in 5-10 mins with no continual fire maintenance. If built right, you can really regulate temps in your forge and if you are good with colors can heattreat most forgeable steels with good to excellent results.

Please don't get me or anyone else here wrong, no one is wanting to dissuade you from forging and making knives. It's just that without some good hands on coaching, you have chosen the more difficult path to success. By all means have fun with it - needs to be enjoyed and not a burden.

There is a lot of true physics, science and geometry that goes into making a good knife that will truly perform the way it should. Lots to learn which makes the journey all that much more fun for most of us.
Bit concerned with your very last statement about getting the heat even through out the edge. For most forgable blade steels that heat needs to be even throughout the entire body of the blade for correct consistent thermal cycling to create a good blade (physics/science part of the game).
Also, you are very confined with the size forge you are working from to even consider doing larger blades. You would be better served with a larger format there and as you are finding out, air source control is a must for decent temp control. As I mentioned before the large scale issue means you are getting too hot in places and over oxidizing the steel (burning it). Tough balance to acquire in your small brakedrum forge.
Stick with smaller blades and get the heat balance and hammer work under control.
Just not a lot of ways to convey this hear on the forums, but be careful what you watch on U-tube, lot of real misinformation out there. Also, even if the information is good there is a lot of personal interpretation of what you see/hear that is subjective to what you already know or believe which may or may not be what is actually presented.
You cannot beat hands-on experience with a professional, so seek one out if at all possible. If he/she charges a fee it will be money well spent. If he/she will do it for free, even better.


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