RhysKawka

Ayy I never wear gloves when using the grinders for those very reasons ahah, rather get scraped and cut than lose a finger or two 

Hi everyone, was just wondering if anyone knows any smiths in or around the Sheffield area? Would be nice to be able to go somewhere that practices the profession and see what goes on but as far as I'm aware there isn't any around like there used to be 

Rhys

I've decided that I.prefer to use my hands to be honest, I use some heat resistant gloves I feel as if I get a lot more control out of it, maybe if I was to start forging axes or hammers then yes I'd definitely need some tongs ahah, thank you all so much for the sound advice

Okay so i have a side blast forge, its a 3inch diameter iron pipe about 2.5ft long. And the colour (in low light) was round about light red

Im currently using lumpwood, and i have a firebrick construction of 2ft by 1.5ft roughly. I know its not entirely accurate but ive done a quick test and its taken me 12mins and 36 seconds to get a small cast steel wrench cherry red. Any idea on the temperatures i might be getting?

So ive built my first charcoal forge with a controlled air flow with a 1200w hair dryer. And i was just wondering, at an estimate how hot you think this forge could be getting at? And also with this estimate how long it would take for a railroad spike to reach cherry red colour?

Afraid i dont have a welder no but that is a good idea, i suppose i could find some way to fix wider jaw onto them? Thanks for the tip

Just wondering if anyone knows where i could get a pair of tongs for cheap in the UK or at least an equally as good alternative. Currently im using vice pliers but im not having much luck with gripping the metal due to the smaller surface area