Induction heating

[RainsFire]

I was cruising youtube, and saw quite a few video's where a person would insert an item, which would be brought to yellow heat in a few seconds.. Is there a down side to using something like this for blacksmithing purposes? would the enviorment be oxidizing? carburizing? are there any dangers surrounding it, and how hard would it be to craft up a small one? I dont really understand it fully, but it sounds like they are just running a current through copper tubing, which creates a magnetic feild thus heating the metal somehow..

so ya, any possibilities?

[Ice Czar]

a lot of effort for a device with a very specialized heating potential
basically X length of some given cross section, reheating odd shapes becomes problematic
dimension flexibility isnt very cost effective

environmental controls could be whatever you want with an additional step in complexity, natively the rapid heating means less oxygen exposure

if your working a specific dimension again and again it might make sense

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note magnetic fields obey the inverse square law the larger the area you have to heat (flexible space) the stronger the field strength and higher the energy cost will be, in addition exposure to heightened electromagnetic radiation at those frequencies is arguably hazardous while shielding is relatively easy its yet another level of complexity. Electromagnetic interference might be an issue with susceptible devices depending on how close they are.