matt87

You got a scrapyard near you? Try there. I happened upon 14" of rail at my local 'recycling centre' (read: 'small scrapyard'). Got it plus some 1x1/4, a 1-1/2lb ball-pein and a large cook-pot for

Two hair driers? You tried it with just one? Fleas are proportional to amount of air, and I've heard that one hair drier should be enough.

Tap (mains) water is not pure water. Depending upon your locale, it may be 'hard' -- have minerals dissolved in it. This is what makes limescale. In some areas, chlorine, fluoride or other chemicals are added to water for various reasons.

You might want to buy single bags at a time until you know that that particular brand has few 'fleas' (big sparks that fly from the fire).

This http://www.iforgeiron.com/blacksmith-blueprints/index.php

I can understand why; we had some problems over here a few years ago with kids derailing trains (or nearly doing so) with concrete paving slabs on the rails. Kinda hard to enforce though.

I've seen a few demos and such at living museums as a kid. Always been interested in metalworking, and seeing as I'm now studying for a BA in archaeology (and wanting to do an MA in experimental archaeology) decided to give it a go! Not done much yet but am quite keen. Possibly something I'd want to into as a career (with an emphasis on the arcaheological/experimental/replica side).

Perhaps you could set up a helve/trip hammer as in the period, but powered by an electric motor... like this YouTube - Martillo Pilon

You could forge it out of mild, and then forge-weld a carbon plate to make the face. That's the old way to do it.

I managed to hump 14" of rail about a mile to get it home, and I'm scarilly skinny! I put it in a large rucksack and took it slowly. Had some scrap mild, a large cooking pot and some other junk in there too.