Forge13

cool...when i get an idea i get excited to try it out...so i try it first...probably should wait till i do a little practice on a spike and then try when i get nice and hot. thanks very much.

so yeah...i've heard all about rr spikes not being knives...so what went wrong with the file i attempted to forge into a blade shape?

lol...also tried to make a knife outta an old file....i'd get it hot and hit it and it would break in half....should i anneal it prior to attempting to forge the blade? or perhaps i didn't have enough heat. or somethin else? lol...back to tha drawing board.

yeah...thanks alot! yeah. i built a couple of tattoo machines...and i got a working knowledge of the systems involved. some guys on the tattoo forums use 1018 and some swear by this pure iron. thanks for the info on where to look for it....most coil cores for tattoo machines are 1 1/4 long and about 5/16 wide.

this is from a tattoo forum...i would like to know what he's talking about. "All of my machines have 99.8% pure iron cores this isn’t the same as 1018 don’t be fooled." so what is this magical 99.8 pure iron? and where could i go about obtaining some.

thank you very much.

lol...free coal.... the idea with annealing the steel rod is to make core for electromagnets...by annealing the steel should become softer and more ferrous...ok not more ferrous but will make a stronger magnet? it's difficult to find low carbon steel...iron...do you foresee flaws in my plan?

COOL....thanks so much....to clarify some aspects i got enough materials together to try these about a month ago. it is, for sure, a bare minimum setup...claw hammer, railroad anvil set on the ground, rusty riveters forge, old coal, blow dryer, channel locks, bucket of water, etc. goals were 1- heat some metal (accomplished) 2- pound out a flat knife shape (accomplished) 3- draw out some metal (accomplished) 4- make a spike knife with a twist handle (accomplished) 5- forge weld a piece of file into the spike (failed) 6- heat treat knives (untried) 7- make damascus steel (failed) 8- anneal some 1018 rod to try and make it more ferrous (untried) 9- make a tattoo machine out of damascus steel and annealed rod for coil cores (maybe lol) i'm still working on acquiring materials and such...so far i have nothing invested except time and energy which is why i am enjoying the set up that i have....and also probably why i'm suffering some failures.lol.....i have a fool for a teacher. thanks for some real advice...this site has been real cool. -S.R.

gonna try to post a pic of some knives i tried...so here goes....lemme know how to improve please.

this was our first one were working on #2 now it weighs roughly 100lbs

thanks very much

was gonna take to small pieces and weld em together side by side and then flip a section upside down and weld in between the first two....a guy at work said that it would probably break right next to the welds....right now i just have a small section buried in the ground horizontally...if i could weld the three pieces together i could have nearly 100 lb. anvil....is this workable or just another bad idea?

9e6f4ea55dbb73bcc4c88d580c3e3921

hello all, new to smithing....got an old forge and lots of RR spikes. thought we'd have a go.....wish us luck.