deadbudgy

Unfortunately for the OP I think the only thing to do is rest and let it heal. Prevention is always better than cure. A large part of being an aging rock climber is injury management of the hands, elbows and shoulders. I've found, over 20 years of repeatably hurting my self, that the best way to avoid a repetitive strain injury is to remember to pay attention to, and work, the antagonist muscle group to the task you have been performing. Basically, after you have been doing a repetitive task, spend some time doing the opposite. The opposite action to gripping with the hand is extension of the fingers. One exercise that I do after every climbing session is to putt a rubber band around my fingers, so that they all come together in a point, and then slowly spread my hand out wide. This gets harder the further apart your fingers get. If you are going to be swinging a hammer all day long, spending five minutes doing this at the end of the day may help avoid the muscle imbalances that can lead to injuries such as the OP. It will help with overall conditioning also which means you will be able to work for longer before you get fatigued. Just my 2c. I don't know much about blacksmithing but I'm an expert on hurting myself and have spent enough money on physiotherapy to understand the value of injury prevention.

Yeah. The video I linked has quite a good little discussion of the properties of Ti and why its really a bad choice for blade material, then they go ahead and do it anyway!

Don't know about the black but theres a good discussion and demonstration of working titanium in this episode of Man at Arms. I found it quite interesting and also impressive Mod Note: Extremely graphic images and advertising

I reckon its a jig for splicing large steel cables