Visited @the.sway.man.13 this weekend. He brought the charcoal forge out so we set out to make some metal glow and then hit it with a hammer real hard. Despite all my metalwork experience, I don’t have any experience with forging at all; this was a fun intro into just beating on some metal and finding out which way it moves and changes shape.
It was hard to judge the steel color in the bright sun, but it worked out alright.
theswayman started off annealing some old files he’s turning into knives, then the beginnings of beating them into something more blade-shaped.
That’s an ~80lb anvil with lots of history and a super cool story about where it came from.
He’s got some bigger files that are even more knife shaped too, but I seem to have missed getting shots of those. Perhaps he’ll be along in a bit to add more progress photos.
I myself got to beat some old low-carbon round bar. I made a leaf! Sorta…
Also learned about brass-brushing hot steel to give it a sort of bronzed/antiqued look. I think that turned out super cool, I’d never seen that technique before.
Well it’s a start. Just like welding after you’ve got the basics down- mastery is just lots and lots of hood-time.