Andrew Martin

THOUSANDS? You could make a fortune selling those cheap...not to mention how many friends you'd make overnight!

Is that moss growing on the walls, or is it paint? Anyhow, I like it; it has that simple, rusticy air about it. Looks like the chimney draws pretty well, but I imagine it takes a while to warm up. It must be great to have a nice, big smiddy of your own like that. OK, I have to go mop the drool off my keyboard now.

Thanks, Pac! Next time I'm going to make the scarfs larger so I can forge down the welds more.

Don't sweat it, Stew, use all the British English you want! I regularly read British literature and media, so I'm relatively familiar with the dialect; it's the Aussies that I can't understand. So, could a machine shop or welding/fab shop also be called a smiddy, even though those types of places usually don't do any forging?

Hello, and welcome! That's the first time I've ever seen the word "smiddy"; I love it, now I have to add that to my list of names for a blacksmith's workplace. I will warn you, this forum has a tendency to increase our vocabularies:)

Mr. Farmer, I am far from an expert on ferrous metallurgy, but I think I can help you a little bit (hopefully without muddying the waters). Normalizing is heating to the critical temp, usually when it turns nonmagnetic at a bright red heat, then air cooling to room temp. Did you test your knife with a file to see if it hardened after the quench? If it isn't a hardenable steel, there's no point in heat treating at all. OTOH, if it did harden, a blue color is a little soft for a knife usually, but it should be very tough now, so you wont have to worry about it breaking. I've never encountered steel pipe that would harden (not enough carbon in the steel), but you might have pipe that does. If it was good steel and you want to try again, I would normalize, harden and temper to desired temperature. Don't use old engine oil anymore, it has nasties in it; use veggie oil instead, works great. Hope that helps some! Oh, almost forgot, try to check out some knifemaking/bladesmithing books at your local library; anything by Mr. Steve Sells or Mr. Jim Hrisoulas is good reading. A high school metallurgy textbook is also helpful for understanding how the heat treating thing works, did wonders for me when I started out!

Hi there! Finally decided to join up after lurking for over a year, lol. I'd been interested in blacksmithing for a few years, but wasn't sure how to get started until I started reading IFI, Weygers, and the like. Lit my first forge in spring of last year and haven't looked back. I mostly make tools and knick knacks, but I want to start doing some architectural work soon. Right now we are in the process of moving, so I wont be getting any forge time, so reading this board will have to suffice in the meantime. That, and going to the local clubs monthly meetings ( I need to remember to buy some more coal...). Anyhow, just thought I'd say howdy oh, and since IFI loves pics, here is a pic of a plant hanger I made awhile back. The forge welds aren't pretty, but it works!