Joel OF

What does "recast" mean? I won't be using tool steel often, I just have some car springs which I wanted to make chisels/punches/drifts/hardy tools out of. I had a design for a hardy tool in mind, (which would require doubling the spring back on itself to make it fit snugly into the hardy hole), but if I shouldn't heat the steel beyond orange then it's probably not a good design as it'll take forever to forge.

I've read that car spring steel and steel of a similar carbon content shouldn't be heated above red/orange, if it has been is there any way of undoing the mistake? Higher carbon steel feels a lot harder to work with than mild steel, logic says heat it up more so it's easier to work with but if I shouldn't heat it up beyond red/orange, is hitting harder my only option?

I used clay from my garden. I mixed in coal dust/wood shavings/twigs/smashed up brick...anything to bins it together, works great. Just get as much moisture out as possible by kneading everything together.

Cheers for all the advice, I rebuilt my forge to allow for a bigger coke mound and it's running well with a lot less clinker. It's now basically a 55 galon forge, (horizontal like a BBQ, not veritcal), with a 5" clay firepot and clay hearth. Today I annealed a meaty hunk of scrap my Mum found in her garden, it's about 3" in diameter and looks like a chisel bit of a pnuematic drill...so I guess the forge is running well to be able to heat that up!

A stool - good one! Thankfully i have an old drumming stool that's sacrificial & it's headed for my "workshack". I've always suffered with a bad back so somewhere to take the weight off for a few minutes will probably help my patience/frustration levels too. For me it sounds like more of an essential than a non-essential.

Just curious whether anyone's got any workshop "must haves" that aren't essential for a workshop? E.g a punch bag? A newspaper? A lucky mascot? When I finally get a water tight shop with electricity a radio will be one of the first things in there, I always have BBC radio 4 on in the background.

Last time I visited and got a bunch of bits out the skip, (6 car springs, 8 foot of thin flat stock, and a few feet of 1/2" round bar), they said I could have it for free but I gave them a fiver anyway. They said it's "no good to man nor beast", but it's easy enough for me to straighten out a slightly bent bit of bar!

That's AMAZING. Surprised there's not an attachment to warm his brie and baguette on.

I'm suprised to hear that even established smiths still ring around for prices, I would have thought that over the years you might have become friendly with a particular supplier and might have even worked your way into the "mates rates" zone. On a mig welding site I found a list of suppliers that sell off cuts, (I'm just a novice so I don't need much stock), I rang up the nearest supplier and I've been there enough times now to start getting half a smile with the service...which says a lot in the south east of England. They have a skip out back too which they let me take stuff free from and it's always full of useful bits, I always come away feeling guilty I've got such useful bits for free considering it's a small company.

Cheers Vaughn. I'd always mistakenly assumed that the blacksmiths that had big mounds of coke did so because they were working with thick stock, but it seems a decent pile is required regardless. I haven't seen that programme but I found it on youtube so I'll watch that later. Last night I re-read a few pages of book by Charles Mcraven I was given for Christmas, he says the coke should be a minimum of 6 inches deep!

Righty o, was curious because a local pro blacksmith uses the bigger supplier. Maybe he is buying enough to bring the price down, or the small supplier might not deliver.

It's not the bottom of the brake disc that needs to the be raised up, (It's about 3inches deep), it's the heart of the fire which needs to be raised. Going by what Frank says that means the heart of the fire in my firepot should be a couple of inches above the hearth, (disc of the brake disc), but I'm finding the heart of the fire is at the bottom of the firepot.

Is there a rule of thumb I can use to calculate steel prices so I know I'm not being ripped off? I rang two local suppliers - one big, one small - and asked for a quote for 1 piece of 3mm sheet. The big supplier said theirs was 2m x 1m and was £95, the small supplier said it was 2.5m x 1m and was £65, more for less! The big supplier also said that to cut the sheet in half would be an extra £10, whilst the smalll supplier said it's free. I find all the numbers and codes to do with steel a bit baffling but I've asked both suppliers if what they're selling is mild steel and they both said yes. Can anyone shed any light on these wild price variations? Could it be that they're selling different quality grades of steel? Or does it just sound like a case of better prices and service from the underdog small supplier?

Cheers, I'll experiment with using more coke and see if it raises the heart of fire. You hear so often that novices waste coke with inefficiency and that has made me cautious about piling coke on, but from the sounds of it maybe my inefficiency comes from using too little coke. At the minute I start the fire at the bottom of the firepot with charcoal, I encircle the charcoal with coke and gradually rake the coke from the sides over the top into the middle, I then add more coke to the sides and repeat the process. In the past I've had problems with moist coke spitting which has made me wary of putting coke in the middle too soon so I've been letting it dry out on the hearth, (disc of the brake disc), before raking it into the middle. To help raise the heart of the fire off the bottom of the firepot should I be doing anything different? Is it worth starting with a layer of coke on the bottom of the firepot with the charcoal ontop of it?

Thanks for the replies. Some more questions... How do I raise up the "heart of the fire" so that as you say it is a few inches above the tuyere? I'm finding that the hottest coke in my forge is right at the bottom of the firepot. I've been burying my work too, but only by about one or two layers of coals so that I can just about see the colour changes and easily move the piece about if needed. To avoid disturbing the coals too much I tend not to just stick it in, I rake back a few coals, put the steel in and then rake coals back over. I'm sure I am using too much air. I chatted with a pro blacksmith a while back and told him I was having problems with clinker whilst burning coke, he said it sounded like I was using too much air. It goes back to what I said earlier though with my hottest coals being at the bottom of the pot at an unworkable height - I'm having to use a lot of air to get the coals at the top hot enough to work with, which is killing the coals at the bottom. I'd love to but I have health problems which are a real pain to work around.

Hi folks, this sounds like a stupid question but can anyone tell me why fire pots are so deep? I read somewhere, (I think in Loreli Sims book), that you shouldn't bury your work in the coals because then you can't see colour temperature changes in your work. With that in mind it seems inefficient and wasteful to me to have a mass of coals burning away with the hottest coals deep down at the bottom of the pot furthest away from your work. Why aren't fire pots shallow or even flat so that you don't need to burn so many coals before the heat reaches your work? I'm guessing fire pots are deep because a "pot" keeps the coals hot whilst your away from your work so you don't need a constant air supply?

It was quite useful to me as a novice but it did focus quite a bit on Baroque gates and such, I can appreciate the craftsmanship but I have next to no interest in that sort of thing. As you say it's something for the public but a bit more info on techniques and metalurgy would have been nice.

Folks there's a 3rd part to this Metalworks series now on the iPlayer site, this episode is called "The Blacksmith's Tale". It's a potted history of the blacksmith through the ages in a way and worth a watch. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01hr877/Metalworks!_The_Blacksmiths_Tale/

Here's a pic of one of the full body sets of armour they look at in the show. They said a suit of armour like that would have cost about £500 which in today's money would be over £1million. I can see why!

http://www.bbc.co.uk...rammes/b01fhphb It's a programme about Tudor armour that was on BBC 4 last night. I didn't see this from the beginning but I'm going to watch it from the start on iPlayer. My jaw was on the floor for most of it. I'd post this in one of the weapon making forums but iPlayer doesn't work outside the UK so doesn't seem much point.

I thought salvaging is using old materials for the job they were intended for, eg cladding as cladding, whilst repurposing is using materials to create something different?

I would have thought that the point of a degree course is for you to learn enough to set up shop yourself and not need to work for someone, though that obviously depends on how much of a niche market you want to get into. Don't discount the value of degree opening doors for you in the future as your interests vary over the years. This might not float your boat but just the sake of example...props makers in the film industry have amazing jobs IMO, and it pays well. Blacksmithing is one of the ways people get into that, but competition for jobs is stiff so having a degree to your name helps sway employers opinion. Unfortunately most things in life are based around "who you know". If you don't know the right people for what you want to do, you have to go the extra mile.

Yeah a lot scrap at my local yard just seems to junk from office conversions and the like as I live in a city, pure heaps of mangled rubbish, but you get the odd diamond in the rough.

Nice idea! Old paint cans must have a common salvaged use, maybe as lamps?

A bowl from saw blades has intrigued me! Do you cut off the teeth or do you make them a feature somehow?