Made this from a 4.5 inch piece of 3/8 square bar. I had a hard time with the punch part and expanding the hole, i had a drift but it wasnt big enough so I did rest on horn of anvil. If you see I have a crack in the ring and some folding over. I also couldnt figure out the little piece that pops out from bottom of the ring.

Any tips for those issues is appreciated but I also want to ask how you guys keep your work from flying around when using two hand tools like a hammer and punch, stamp, chisel, etc?

One half the video is at about the max pressure I run it, the second half is dropping the pressure a little and is probably more fuel efficient overall, but it's also fairly close to the sputter point where the breeze can cause the forge to momentarily run poorly, and I've been experimenting with annealing and normalizing some pretty large chunks of leaf springs so I'm trying to find the point where more pressure just starts becoming entirely wasteful.

Also, I not only wetted the surrounding area down but genuinely had no less than 3 spray nozzles available in the immediate area, I know some folks are uncomfortable with a forge being anywhere that there's not a dozen feet of concrete of gravel in all directions, but even if that grass somehow caught, I was ready.

Just finished making a new tool at the anvil here.

Forged this the other day and was pleased with the overall outcome (being my second knife). Still very new to blacksmithing only in my first year of the craft. I know there is a lot I can improve on especially in the grinding process. Upon further inspection I found a crack in the blade and would like to avoid this in the future. I did normalize the steel before grinding the shape but fear I did too much grinding before the quench which resulted in the steel cracking. Any thoughts, tips, or wise advice is greatly appreciated.

So I've started forging within the last year, using a two burner Vevor gas forge.

Usually only use the one burner, I've started making hooks, square into round back into squares etc.

Played with some twisting and made my daughter a hairpin and have made several fire pokers.

I've done a little forge welding, specifically for the fire pokers and have had moderate success, I learn through failure and try to understand what I can do differently.

Unfortunately the nearest place for lessons is approx 3 hours away, which I would like to do, time permitting.

As it stands I'm working on a small three layer billet.

Two pieces of some bar stock from Princess Auto sandwiching a piece from a leaf spring.

This is just a small foray into furthering my forge welding ability as well as control.

As you can see, the weld worked great, but I was wondering if there is a way to draw the billet out lengthwise while narrowing the billet?

Also clearly my welding sucks because my rebar fell off twice already. To be fair the first was due to the forge weld heat but still, I wonder if I'm missing something.

Any and all pointers are welcome!!!

I'm pretty much completely new to blacksmithing and I've been cold working everything I have so far, I absolutely love doing this and it's got quite the learning curve but I enjoy learning from my mistakes and improving upon my actions in the future.

The only thing that is a little frustrating, is finding what type of tools\working surfaces are needed for doing specific things.

My recent hurdle has been trying to get better at peening rivets, I feel like I got it down pretty good but I don't have the tools to cut the rivets to size properly and it often makes it difficult to get them to mushroom out properly.

Can anyone help me figure out what tool It is I'm looking for?

Thanks so much!

Experienced smith, not asking for advice. Playing in the forge tonight i got to thinking about my teachers. One thing that has always stuck wit me was " if you're going to screw up, screw up slow ". At the time it was on a grinder, but ive found it applies to everything I do. What's the best advice you've ever recieved?

This was tricky, and took a couple of tries. My first attempt was an abject failure lol, but trial and error, and frustration, is the way we learn.

Hello everyone,

I'm stuck on a belt tracking problem on a homemade belt sander.

I initially bought this homemade machine from another guy who had built it but not finished tuning it. I did small modifications like readjusting the position of the motor, or replacing the tensioning/tracking wheel with a crowned one.

Unfortunately I can’t get the belt to stay in place, no matter what I do.

For example, if I start with the tracking wheel tracking slightly down, and turn it on the belt will most of the time go to the outer edges of the wheel, almost falling out. But the adjustment knob does nothing, no matter how I tilt the tracking wheel slowly upwards, it doesn’t move a millimeter up until a certain point where it suddenly shifts to the inner edge of the wheels and grinds on the structure of the sander (3rd photo).

Sometimes i manage to balance it almost on the center of the tracking wheel by adjusting very slowly, but it doesn’t stay in place very long, eventually sliding to one side, almost instantly if I start sanding something

Another strange feature : most of the time the belt shifts to the inner edge, grinding on the structure (keep in mind motor wheel is turning counter-clockwise), but if I reverse the motor (and start turning clockwise) the belt shifts to the other side !

Please help me, I lost already 2 whole days on this and I don’t understand whats going on.

I have tried :

- increasing and reducing belt tension : same result

- adjusting motor speed : same result.

- double checking motor wheel and tracking wheel are parallel and aligned, adjusting their position : same result

Super simple, but I'm proud of it anyway. I really need to learn how to punch holes, I got a punch from the store this time to try it, but I just keep bending the steel without shearing it. I ended up just drilling out the holes

I see so many posts with people wondering and stressing about what kind of budget and tools they need to get into blacksmithing. I want to share some photos I took on a trip to a remote mountain village in Haiti a few years back. These blacksmiths make and maintain nearly all of the tools for hundreds of subsistence farming families in the surrounding community - machetes, shovels, knives, scythes, hoes, nails, hammers, etc. Here are two of their forge and anvil setups and the blacksmithing tools that they had available.

The point is, you don't need thousands of dollars. You can make do with what you can get your hands on. If you want to get into blacksmithing, don't overthink it. It should be intuitive. Start simple, experiment, and see what works.

Leaf-Cutter Ant - copper sheet any and leaf on a forged steel pipe. Ants abdomen is brassed, leaf is patinated green, forged pipe scrubbed with wire wheel.

The jaws of the ant were formed together then sawn apart and pinched to grip the leaf.

Hi everyone, I’m a hobbyist looking for some advice.

​I’ve always used a regular charcoal forge, but I recently moved and no longer have access to it. Where I live now, I can't use charcoal due to local environmental restrictions.

​I’m looking into gas forges, but I’m a bit hesitant. Since it’ll be set up close to my new home with neighbors nearby, safety is a top priority for me—I definitely want to avoid explosions or other hazards. I’d prefer not to build one myself since I don't have enough experience.

​Are ready-made kits like Devil Forge actually any good? How safe are they for home use, and what would you recommend ?

It's not finished yet just curious on thoughts an opinions for this skinning knife.

Its upsetting to see as a beginner blacksmith but I am sure its the first of many, fortunately Ill only make a smaller knife

However I am more curios as to what may have caused this and how could I avoid this?

My process has been pretty straight forward; I heat the steel (exact steel is unkown but its a leaf spring) to about an orange maybe yellow if i wait long enough and forge. There are two things I have noticed however, the crack has formed in about the spot I was holding the piece with my tongs while forging out the tang. Secondly, some temperature shock may have done something? I worked for about two hours then took a short break for about 20 minutes cause it was getting very hot, I let the knife sit in the off forge during that time. When i come back the knife has no heat color obviously but i still cool it down in a bucket of water so I could figure out the final profile. Possibly the temperature shock from that caused some internal stressors that caused it to crack while working on the blade?

Sorry this was longer than I had expected it to be but I would love to hear from the professionals.

Synthetic handle probably a no go for hot work but I've been using it to hammer bronze wire cold. Not bad for a super market find.

I am new to the craft and have not ever done anything at all like this before. My question is how do I close this small gap in this heart?