Today was one of them days, I go into the shop and the fire is still burning from last night, ill post the method I use to do that in another subject. But I get started and I hammered an old wrought iron wagon wheel rim into 1/4 bar, by hand, Im poor so I dont have a power hammer. Then I started making steak turner out of it. I made a careless mistake and cut it off too short so now I have a handle and half what i need for the rest of it, just then a friend walks in the shop and im thinking great! Ill have someone to hold the mild steel rod I need to weld onto it. well he never worked in a blacksmith shop before and i pulled the sparkling rod out of the fire and it freaked him out and he didnt know what to do so I had to re heat it, then after I reheated I started the weld, it felt like it took, I Lift it up and it falls in two on the way back to the forge, so then I figure o well Ill cheat and MIG weld it, I do that and start to forge down the weld, go figure, I mash it down too much. Then I go to weld in a filler, the welder was too hot and burnt the rod in 2, I said some times ya gotta know when to just drop it so I quenched it and set it on the welding table. Then I took some rods to make a braided handle, I start it get to the final twist and one of the rods breaks and ruins the whole handle. Then I figure well Ill take this WI handle and make some J hooks out of it, ive made plenty and have them down pat. I start it and then after a few swings the fibers split all over the thing. I tried to weld em back together but no luck there. Must have had a dirty fire today. Then as im cleaning up the shop I look over at a billet I never finished. It was 8 hacksaw blades, 1 roller chain, and some cable, My concious kicks in and says are you sure you want to do that? its been a bad day and you have alot of time in that billet? do you really wanna risk screwing it up? ( kinda scary I actually heard a voice in my head haha) Well I find myself throwing the billet in the fire. start forging out a blade, turned out nice, Ground down with an angle grinder because it was late and I wanted to get a preview of the etch.... It looks great... First time I fought the bad day and it ended in my favor... So how about we hear some of your bad day experiences.

Perfect practice makes perfect. It'll all come together eventually.

You do know that Wrought Iron is cold short, and will give you nothing but grief if you try and do anything with it below a bright red heat, right:-)

Yah, wrought iron does some odd things when you try and work it too cold. If I had a power hammer it would probally be my primary material. Its too much work to hammer down a wagon wheel to 1/4 or so by hand but I love how soft it is and easy to work while hot.

you must have quite a stash if you can make it your primary material.

I have access to only 3 wagon wheels atm. But they are cheap and always at auctions.

we don't have wagons up here let alone wheels for them (too many trees and mountains to make them practical at the time I guess. It was train or pack horse. Sounds like you got a good soure for teh WI then. Good to hear.