Stephen Melancon

So I was going to build a forge but a friend near me let me borrow his. This is the fruits of day one. That is an oak board handle with brass pins. The finished looking one is quenched (while the other one isn't) and and now skates a file with a fine edge to match. Slices some water bottles and thick cardboard clean like it wasn't there. Also I think I'm now addicted. It's just simple, clean fun. I have some stock welded together and I think I'll try forge welding next. Also I love that I got two whole knives per file.

Thanks and sorry for the language.

I also have a large and smaller ball-pein hammers that I will most likely be using. Thanks for the info. I will be sure to post more and more. As far as steel goes I have four railroad spikes and some other pieces of mystery steel as well as about +50 ft of old re-bar that is rusted very badly. I'm only planing on using the re-bar for practice with hammer strokes so don't worry. As far as Forge design I'm using a large metal can filled with 50/50 plaster of Paris and sand, with steel wool to keep it from breaking down and crumbling. Any thoughts/ tips.

So I've heard that using claw hammers for forging is a no but I have some hammers that seem like there shape would be good. I'm building a gas forge and I should be ready to fire up and start forging by Wednesday. Here's the first hammer that seemed to be useful. Any thoughts ill be very active in the next few days trying to get all the info I can before starting.