I have been trying to forge a pair of bolt head tongs using the champion method as described by Bill Epps and I have a problem. Every time I form the shoulders for the boss where the rivet goes cracks begin to appear in the radius of the shoulder. As I continue to draw out the jaw the cracks get worse, to the point it looks like the metal is crumbling almost like the crumb of bread. I have tried changing my materials around to no avail. My other thought was that the metal was bending at the shoulder while bellow the forging temperature of the metal because it is thin there. Yesterday I was very careful about both forging temperature and keeping the shoulder/boss from bending and I had the same problem. I am at a complete loss I have tried 6 times now to make on and each time the same thing happens. I will admit I took about a year off from blacksmithing and Im just getting back into it so maybe there is something I am forgetting?
