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I Forge Iron

My First Forged Piece


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I finished lining the forge yesterday with refractory and slowly heated it up to cure it.

Today was the big day!  I picked up some 3/8" square stock from home depot and forged my first piece.

It is probably what everyone forges for their first thing, as it is pretty simple, a leaf keyring.

Took close to half an hour and I think it turned out pretty good, for my first hammered out piece.

Man that was fun!

30938611408_911e92fb6e_o.jpg

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Nicely done. 

Here are a couple of ideas that you might find useful. 

Instead of buying stock from home depot, you can get all stock you will ever need from local welding shops and/or iron fabricators (shops that make gates, fences and general iron works) . It will probably be better material and the price will be right. 

Just bring along a couple of items you made to show them and explain you are a beginning blacksmith  and ask if you can have some of the scrap that they  would normally throw away.  Most shops just throw away two or three foot lengths rather than clog up the shop  with unusable lengths. 

At some time when you  get to the point where you want to use hardenable steels, you can visit local machine shops and ask for their scrap. Just tell them what you are going to use it for. 1040/1045 steel is very commonly used in machine shops. Maybe not some of the higher carbon steels. 

You can also try repair  shops that work on automobile suspensions (springs from shock absorbers/struts/etc.)  Once again the price is right.  A WORD OF CAUTION, don't try to disassemble these yourself. The springs are under enormous pressure and you can easily blow yourself into the middle of next week . The shops where you get these springs usually have the equipment to safely disassemble them . 

 

Good luck and hammer on.

 

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Wow, that's better than the first things I forged.  Great job.  Have fun with it and your skills will improve as you make more things, but that's pretty darn good and very clean for a first ever forging.

Don't buy your steel from Home Depot or the likes.  I was in there just the other day and looked at their steel, $10 for a 6 ft piece I was looking to get.  At my local steel supplier the same size piece is $10 for 20 ft!!  Just bring something to cut the 20 ft section in the parking lot if it won't fit in your vehicle.  I know what you are thinking...."Well I don't need 20 feet"  Trust me, you'll use it.  

Scrap yards are great too.  My last visit found me coming home with 40 pounds of steel for $10.  Coil springs, steel rod, jack hammer bits, and hay rake tines.  Of course that's all high carbon steel, but if it's just mild steel there's tons of it for the picking if the yard allows it.  Some don't.  If they don't, find a U-Pull it auto junk yard that allows people to go and pull their own parts.  Go looking around and find good steel.  You'll pay a little more, but still way less than home center big box stores.

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Ditto on looking for a metal supplier other than the big-box stores. I get most of my new metal from a local combination tool store/fabrication shop for far less than I would pay at the local big boxes, and the first cut on many standard sizes is free, so I can get any length that I want.

Al (Steamboat)

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Very nice leaf and exceptional first piece, especially without having someone there giving guidance.

DickB’s advice on stock is spot on. Besides the 1045, mentioned, 4130 and 4140 are extremely common medium carbon alloy steels they use and are very tough and make great tough tools.

Donuts and beer are very helpful trading mediums, besides showing them the neat things you create. If beer, make sure that goes thru the foreman to be distributed after shift or your source may be cut off, but a powerful medium it is!

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WOW CJ, that is an outstanding first project! You already have darned good hammer control. If you put a little curve on the veining chisel like on an axe blade it'll make positioning and cutting straight lines easier and you'll be making as perfect as any leaf vein needs to be. Well done!

Buy full sticks from the steel supplier if possible. Do NOT ask about cutting for transport at the counter, they HAVE TO charge per cut. However, the guys in the yard who load you out usually ask if you want it cut for transport. It's usually automatic and gratis. The steel supplier closest to me loads you out next to the cold saw, they guys stack it on the saw till you drive around. Is THAT a hint or what? I can't speak for steel yards everywhere but I haven't been to one that worked differently yet. If they don't just get out your hack saw and go to work, at worst it'll take maybe 30 seconds to cut 3/8" sq or 1/2" rnd. stock with a hacksaw. A bar clamp will secure it to a tail gate nicely. However my bet is the yard guys just whack it in half to get you on your way. 

Picking up drops (left over pieces from cutting for projects) at fab shops usually results in good stock for scrap or get it out of here prices. Custom suspension and spring shops are good for similar deals on medium carbon stock, in the range of 1040 - 1060 or spring steel, call it 5160 though there's no telling what it REALLY IS now days. Machine shops usually have lots of drops though in larger sizes, say 1" up and 4140 is becoming a very popular even go to stock for things like bucket pins and such, it's great die and hammer stock.

Frosty The Lucky. 

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Frosty great point on cutting the stock.

Im not actively forging or gabbing these days, but when I was it was EXACTLY as you said.

Stock was always sitting on the roller bench with the cold saw. I paid once for cuts, never again because of what you stated, even that time the guys in the yard asked me if I needed any other cuts.

If his yards different, put a box of donuts in next to the hack saw, you may not need the saw. And if you do that time, probably not the next if the same guys always work the saw and load out.

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ColoradoCJ, I live in the same city!

There's a company called "Metal Distributors" on Mulberry in Fort Collins.  They are open till noon on Saturdays and their metal prices have been 25% of what Home Depot charges.  They have a rack of off-cuts that are generally less than 24" but longer than 12" that sell for 15-20% less than their per foot rate.  They sell to the public and their staff will cut whatever you need.  I don't think they've ever kept me waiting more than a couple of minutes.  

 

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Thanks everyone.  

I just bought the stock from home depot because i wanted something right away.  Rockstar, thanks for the tip, I'll definitely visit them for some steel.  I also have contacts at CIM where I normally get my tube steel from.

I forged my second leaf this morning.  It came out much better than the first.  It is a lot thinner, more leaf-like than the first forging. 

This is a lot of fun!

29890910377_31ba8fe3c9_o.jpg2nd Forged Leaf by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

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Thanks!  Photography is a large part of my life.  I am not a professional, though I have sold some of my work.  

Here's a link to some of my photos, nothing is organized though:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/55229792@N03/

I shoot both digital and film, my real love is my 4x5 large format film camera (I develop all my b&w, C41 and E6 at home).  I am also starting to learn how to shoot wet plate.  I have WAY too many hobbies, and blacksmithing is going to be another one I am really going to enjoy.

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GOOD GRIEF! I didn't even take notice of the quality of your photography and I'm the one giving pics tips to folks. Oh the second leaf is another nice one for sure. Sorry, I'm still slapping myself for missing good photo standards. 

Frosty The Lucky. 

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Very nice photography.  

I only have a Canon G10 now that I've moved away from the SLR's.  I like that it's small enough to tote around, though I also use that "portability" as my excuse for the bad pictures I take with it.  The pros that recommend the G10 series all remark about how wonderful it is and how they prefer it as their traveling camera because it'll do every bit as good as the big bag of bodies and lenses they would normally have to carry with them.  In my hands..... ugh!

My latest pic, trying to mimic that warm lighting you showcase so effortlessly.  Ended up getting a nice warmth, I think, but the detail is off.  You can see the scratches in the wax finish from where I rubbed it with a cloth, the glare from the overhead light washes out a lot of details while seeming to highlight the unwanted details like those scratches in the wax.  So frustrating!

IMG_6881.thumb.JPG.5af63eee13d506fe6b45c34f74d6068c.JPG

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Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it!

 

Well, I got to the shop today and started heating metal.  

I didn't want to make another leaf keyring, and I had some railroad spikes I bought off ebay, so I started heating one of those up.

An hour and a half or so later I finished forging a small camp knife.  

I didn't know forging would be this fun!


Here's a photo, not a very good photo though.  I left my camera at the house, so this was taken with my cell phone.

43941236485_4bca1343b1_b.jpgFirst Forged Knife by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

 

I didn't have a belt grinder, so I went down to Harbor Freight and picked up a cheap $50.00 1 x 30 belt grinder.  

I've never used a stationary belt grinder before, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly.  I used an 80 grit belt to grind off all the scale and touch up the edges.  The bevels I forged into the blade, so I didn't have to remove much steel to get a pretty clean blade.

I think I am going to heat treat it before I grind any further.  I've never made a knife before, so I need to do some reading up on the best heat treating and how to finish grind the knife.  

As for the handle, I think I am going to use some black G10 I have laying around the shop.  I might sandblast the G10 after shaping to get a little bit of grip to the scales. 

43941360915_57c6f385b5_b.jpgForged Rail Road Spike Knife by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

 

 

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You can get an almost unlimited amount of good quality mild steel from local welding shops and steel fabricators like shops that make gates and railings. Bring along something that you have made and explain that you are a beginning blacksmith.  Ask them for some drops ( leftover pieces too short for their regular jobs). 

Local machine shops usually have lots of medium  carbon steel leftovers. Great for making tools and knives.  If it was good enough for someone to pay a shop to machine something out of it then it ought to be good enough for you. 

Both of the above will yield good quality new steel and the price is right, usually free.

Finally shops that work on automobile suspensions and/or general repairs usually have automobile shocks and struts. These typically yield  about six feet of good quality steel for tools and knives.  Ask them to remove the spring from whatever it's mounted on because disassembling the shocks and/or struts is pretty dangerous.  It's not necessary to straighten the whole coil spring before you use it.  Just use an angle grinder with a cutoff disk or even a plain hacksaw and cut off what you need for the project. 

Good luck 

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Thanks!

 

I haven't finished the knife yet (too busy with work).

I still have to sharpen the knife and finish smoothing out, thinning out the handle.  It is coming along nicely though, much nicer than I thought it would be for my first knife.

44890052452_286c6d9941_o.jpgRailroad Spike Knife 2 by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr

30002069767_7f16a358aa_o.jpgRailroad Spike Knife by Andrew Marjama, on Flickr


I'll probably finish it up tomorrow, then on to something else.
 

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