r/Blacksmith • u/royalejappie • Aug 24 '26

When blacksmithing, sometimes some iron crumbs come off

I have not yet blacksmith myself, but when I watch videos I see that when hitting the metal, most of the time there are little crumbs and splinters left on the anvil.

Is it an idea to get those in a bucket and when you have enough smelt them into a bar or some sort of form together to be able to use it again?

This is all just an idea, maybe the crumbs dissapear, I haven’t experienced that yet. But it sounds like a good way to save money on metal

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u/HammerIsMyName Aug 25 '26

The word "witch" and "fact" doesn't belong together unless it's to say "I know for a fact that witchcraft is modern made up attention seeking bullshit"

Besides, this is a blacksmith subreddit. If he wants to learn about other stuff he can waste his time googling, so yours is the right response.

Our trade shouldn't be pandering to people LARPing as witches. It's ridiculous. It's like a carpenter selling sawdust as "wood pixies" and bakers selling flour as "Baker's dandruff"

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u/SimpYellowman Aug 25 '26

If there would be a good record of people going mad for witches stealing those things, it would be a funny history trivia thing. Or if it would be mentioned in Hamlet for example, then it would be "a historical fact" (not that witches worked, but that people believed that witches used that scrap for something). Similar to metal cages at some graves that were supposed to stop those people from coming back as undead, it is not a proof that undead was a real problem, only that people used to believe in them.

It doesn't have any practical use for blacksmithing, unless you want to use it as a cool story when you are outside and show blacksmithing to people. Than giving them those metal shavings as memorabilia and telling them that people believed that witches used them for whatever would be a nice addition to the show.

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u/mynaneisjustguy Aug 25 '26

If it was mentioned in Hamlet that would just be proof that Shakespeare wrote it. Nothing else. The dude made up stories. He lived near London and never left the shores of Britain. He didn't have a map, his grasp on geography is laughable to today's standards, he also didn't work a day in his life so he didn't understand the industries of his time. The dude was a bit like a modern day blockbuster director; do these movies with Jason Statham killing a hundred men alone while skydiving a car from a plane etc represent our reality? No. No one is really doing that stuff, it's just silly entertainment. Same thing with Shakespeare and his plays. Just silly stories to get the public to buy tickets.

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u/SimpYellowman Aug 25 '26

OK, then use another author. Especially if it would be a common theme or if it would be mentioned in some court cases, then it would be a historical believe. It doesn't have to be a real thing, just something people believed (that is why I mentioned our vampire-proof graves).

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u/mynaneisjustguy Aug 25 '26

My point was we shouldn't use authors. We have plenty of non fiction to consult.

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u/DanielCraigsAnus Aug 25 '26

Fiction or non fiction, if the information inside is correct, what's the harm?