I usually wear a kaffiyeh (shemagh) wrapped around my head and neck while blacksmithing to absorb sweat and keep soot out of my hair. On Sunday, a spark from the forge must have blown into a corner of the wrap and been fanned by the breeze from a large stand fan, because I found myself thinking “What’s that smell? And why is my neck stinging?”

It's a good thing that the kaffiyeh is cotton, though: it smoldered (lost a chunk the size of my palm) but never caught fire. An artificial fabric would probably have blazed up or melted onto my neck. There's a reason for the natural-fibers-only rule in the forge.

 

It's amazing how good a solid soaking in sweat is as a fire resistant additive to cloth.

Soaking a little borax in the sweat or water solution presoak for that Shemagh, keffiyeh, or Havelock will work even better. 

SLAG.

While borax works great for aprons and things I find that head cloths to absorb sweat do not work as well when so pretreated.

I've tried, but can't find natural fiber forge flip flops. Any ideas?

Steve

leather huaraches, a pre-columbian design, should pinch hit for flipflops.

I made my last pair from motorcycle tires and paracord. I'll try them under the frankenboots.

Not quite the "Natural Fiber"   Of course if you consider wood to be a natural fiber---or made from natural fiber, then clogs would come close and there are always Zōri to go with your tabi (I like the pair of chainmail covered tabi shown on wiki)...