Blake D

Thomas I hadn’t heard of the ABANA before but I didn’t do a quick check and pulled up their page. I’m not seeing much for Mississippi but I will give em a shout and see what they say. Thanks

Thomas I’m sorry I did mean briquettes by store bought. I have not tried that, my biggest issue was the pitting which I’ve gathered is just an excess of scale, it’s crazy to me that it could be that much but that seems the most probable cause. I have only run the forge once last night and will try again this weekend with all lump, ash dumb open and probably put a ball valve on the end of the shop vac to reduce the air flow. I really wanted coal, I just can’t get past the idea but it’s impossible to find from the area of Kentucky we visit on down here to Mississippi and I’m not paying online prices. It gets plenty hot though, I was able to play around with some crappy rebar I had laying around and flatten it out nicely.

Thomas it does have an ash dump and it’s a mix I use lump and then the store bought . The lump is quality I made it from nice hardwood. CFDAEDFA-300F-4389-B740-3E63585A12C1.MOV

I read that JHCC thanks for the link, I will post pictures as soon as I am able. I was always under the impression that the scale was removed with the brush. It’s 1080 1/8” steel and I most definitely over heated it based on the above reply’s. I will try it one that and just move to a 1/4” 1080-1095 maybe. I know now that this was way to hot and I do know that the fire is way to large but I can’t really do much else with a shop vac, I am running a store bought charcoal mixed with charcoal I made out of some maple and cherry scraps I had laying around

HI, I am completely new to working with metal but am a pretty experienced woodworker. That being said im not an idiot but im also not sure on what I am doing most of the time. My biggest issue is when i make a knife, with material removal not forging, I heat the steel to a non magnetic state, pull it out and brush it and then put back in for a few mins and then pull out to normalize. I do this 3 times and on the final stage I dip in warm canola oil. When I pull it out of the oil I noticed large black spots everywhere and when I take it to the grinder I realized that the divots went so deep into the steel that the knife was ruined. It looked like it had rusted for 30 years and had extreme pitting. I have searched and searched and can not find anything on this issue. Im not sure if im using the proper terminology which could be the reason I cant find what I need. If this is the wrong spot to post please let me know and I will move. This is the first time on this forum, thanks for any help, tips, advice.