Can you forge a singe piece of steel too many times ?

I would think there are a bunch of possibilities there.  Loss to scale.  What properties are you expecting to keep,  loss of carbon or other alloys.  temperatures worked whether you have over heated the steel far to much.  I'm sure someone with a little more experience will be along shortly 

 

Roughly how much of your metal gets lost due to scale ?

Let's say you re-forge tong tips, normal mild steel , it should just be strong enough to pick up other metal ...

Thanks for the reply, 

Michael.

               Roughly 0-100% depending on a slew of different factors.  More experienced smiths paying strict attention to a job using a forge that is very well tuned to neutral or reducing and taking a minimum number of heats lose very little to scale.  New people to the craft using a very oxidizing forge (propane, coal. coke, charcoal, etc) leaving rthe workpiece in way too long and taking several times the number of heats as an experience smith will loose quite a bit to scaling.

ISTR a "fudge factor" of 1% per heat used for industrial work.

I dinbhae a forge yet, so I use an oxy-acetylene torch, creates quite some scale ... Luckily I'm on my way to builidbg a forge 

Turn the oxy down so there is a faint feather at the end of the primary flame. HOT steel will scale in contact with air but if it's happening under the torch you have too much oxy in the flame. SLIGHTLY carburizing is desirable.

Frosty The Lucky.

Somewhere in "The Blacksmith's Craft," I think it says, "Metal forged at the correct temperature loses no strength." I assume that the authors assume that you are not overheating nor underheating while hammering, and that you are not overly soaking the metal. Soaking would mean getting the metal to an incandescent heat and leaving it in say, a coal fire with the blower off, for an extended period.

I have torn A36 steel by over working it in one heat. Just to show off under the 3B Nazel I have upset a round bar 1.5" diameter x 6" tall into a rough cube and then drawn it out to a 1" square sideways (90 degrees to the 1.5" round) and then upset it back onto a faceted ball and then heavy forging into a 1" square bar again in one heat.......many tares in the material.

It maintains heat well if forged hard as the friction (adiabatic heating) does wonder5s, but the steel does not like the experience. I'd not make a chain holding a piano over my head with that bar of steel.

Is that wat you had in mind?

Ric