mediaevalist

Charcoal is a bit expensive for the amount that I've been going through as s hobbyist, and worst yet I have to drice quite a way for proper charcoal as well. Coke is even more expensive and I don't like the smell, and I don't like to use propane, so I've got the idea to use peat as fuel. In my area of the UK it is abundant and cheap, my grandparents use peat to heat their home because it had almost no smoke or stench. Can I use it in a forge?

Mate thanks so much! I really like those top 3, with a sleeker black handle they'd really look like Japanese style blades! Those will work fine for my purposes.

I'm in the UK and a self taught beginning blacksmith, most of what I've made has been decorative stuff like flowers or wall mounted candle holders etc. the only blade that I've made from scratch is a razor for my dad. Although I don't plan to make a career out of bladesmithing, I want to get good enough at making knives that I can do it. My EDC since I was 13 is an Opinel no 7 that I was given for Eid-al-Fitr, I love it but it's over a decade old and even though I've cared for it well I need a knife EDC. I want to make something that's cool and based on a traditional European, Middle Eastern or (South) Asian style, since it's an EDC it has to be legal and in the UK that means that the blade should be no more than 3 inches long and it must be a folding knife that is opened manually. I want to find an idea that doesn't just look like a regular utility knife to make for myself. I'm planning on making the blade piled, most of it is going to be made out of 150 year old wrought iron that has a nice look to it but the cutting edge is going to be modern high carbon steel. Any cool/weird/interesting/traditional styles for a knife that can be used as a UK legal EDC that you can recommend? Cheers

Hello, I'm making a small bronze blade, a straight razor actually. I've never worked with bronze before and I'm treating this as my introduction to the alloy before I move onto larger products, I chose a razor to start with because the iron razors that I have, have a problem with rusting and it will be nice to not have to deal with that. I know that the preferred way to work bronze is to cast it, and I plan to cast it into the basis of the shape that I'd like, but if possible I'd like to forge it to draw it out and then file the bevel into the blade, which will lead to a lot less wasting of material and filing work (I only have a hand file) than casting it to shape and then filing it to a blade. My question is how to forge bronze, I've read that it needs to be cold worked, but since bronze work hardens, won't that make it brittle? At the same time, I've read that if you get it hot and try to forge it like iron, it'll be too soft and just fall apart. So, how do I do this properly? My experience with metalworking is limited and self-taught, and the bronze that I'm working with is traditional 88/12 tin bronze. Thank you!