Over the years, I have shot many videos of blacksmiths beating on hot iron and I have seen a lot of 'em, too. But, what the camera sees and what I see with the naked eye aren't even close, as relates to the glowing color of the material being worked.
Is it just me? I think not.
There are many reasons why this disparity can be an issue.
The main problem, as I see it. is that beginning blacksmiths won't realize this problem. To them, the smith appears to be:
-taking the iron out of the fire at a completely white heat and then;
-beating on it for a really long time while the metal seems to stay bright red forever!
When, in actuality (viewed by the human doing the work or by a bystander) the metal is several hundreds of degrees cooler that it appears on the video.
And, in reality, while the metal appears to be still glowing on the video, the smith is actually planishing a piece that doesn't appear to the naked eye to be glowing at all.
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So, what, if anything, do the videographers amongst you do about that?
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The reason that I am asking today is that I have been messing around with a $35.00 1000 watt induction heater from China for the last couple of months and I am having trouble duplicating the results that I APPEAR to see on youtube videos that demonstrate its use. They show, for instance, a small graphite crucible becoming white hot, when, to my eye on the bench, it is barely glowing at all. But NONE of the videos give a complete picture of their setup and I don't think any of those producers understand metallurgy at all.BTW, don't get all excited about this cheap induction heater just yet. It runs a too high a frequency (about 100 Khz) to get iron hot enough to do any real forging.
Pete Stanaitis
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