Hello from Italy!

[MrCackle]

Hello all,

I'm a new member from Italy.

I'm preparing a coal forge to use in my backyard and I stumbled upon your forum, I lurked a bit and then I decided to sign up.
I have had just one experience with working on metal during a knife making class, but there we used angle grinders to form the knife and the forge to harden and heat treat.

Cheers!
Mr Cakcle

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Mr. Cackle (or is it Cakcle?) What sort of things would you like to make? For a start I recommend you make your fire tools for the forge and some basic projects to develop proficiency at the anvil. Things like coat hooks, plant hangers, etc. Blades require careful heat management while forging and the steel is physically harder go forge, it makes learning to blackssmith harder than it needs to be. Make sense?

Frosty The Lucky.

[MrCackle]

I'd like to make some fireplace tools (expecially firepokers), decorations and nails. I am not too intrested in blades as of now, I have satisfied my want of knives for the time being.
I would like to eventually build a rondel dagger for my HEMA class, but that can wait a year or two.
What was your first project Frosty?
Cheers!

PS the Cakcle in the end of the first message is a typo

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Welcome from the Ozark Mountains. Looks like you have a handle on how to start out. So many of us started making knives and became discouraged when the steel didn't do what we wanted it to do, but seemed to have a mind of it's own. I found a master blacksmith who took me under his wing so to speak and he set me on the right path to moving metal. The first thing I made on my own was a large nail heading tool, still have it 40 years later.

There is a thread about what was your first forged item, I think in General Blacksmithing, pretty interesting seeing what everyone's first project was.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

[MrCackle]

I'll check that section out, thank you!

[Frosty]

Heh heh heh, I do so love a good typo! I don't like joking about people's names even if they make a really hilarious typo of it. I've misspelled my last name a few times, happily I make enough mistakes I'm rarely embarrassed anymore. 

I honestly don't recall the first thing I forged, I was playing with fire and beating on steel a long time before I discovered "The Art Of Blacksmithing," by Alex Bealer on a close out table at a book store. Until then I was just winging it with little to show. 

Once I had SOME guidance I think my first projects were various draws, tapers, etc. Upsetting is still . . . UpSETTING! To get a good upset section I have to heat with a torch so I can localize the heat and have control. 

I just remembered! My first successful forged project was a screwdriver in jr. high school metal shop 1! Then we made cold chisels! all as required class projects. Jr. High (middle school) metal shop was almost all required projects to teach us the basic processes, tools and machines. Projects like, sharpening a drill bit properly, making a left hand lathe cutter, gas weld and braze, make a 2" torch cut, thread a piece of round rod and tap a hole, they had to screw together smoothly to pass, etc. Dad had the aluminum ash tray I cast and polished in that class on a shelf by his desk decades after he quit smoking.

Anyway, the first thing I forged was a screw driver! 

Frosty The Lucky.