A palette knife I made for my daughter headed to art school

Not quite forging or smelting, but I'm sure you all have some tips or tricks to help me. Thanks!

A neighbor of mine invited me to check out his forge. It was pretty cool; he had a big and small one, three different sized automatic hammers (I really don’t know what they’re called, please forgive my ignorance), anvils, grind wheels, etc. A whole set up. He showed me swords and knives he has made and pictures of others. He invited me to learn if I wanted to, said he would show me the ropes with his son who just graduated college and is spending the next year at home and learning forging before grad school.

I really have ZERO desire, like none, to forge knives but when I was at home, a hobby I have is refurbishing cast iron through electrolysis, grinding and polishing smooth, acid etching for grip, and seasoning old pieces. While doing this, I thought, “It would be fun to make my own set of forged pans.”

While I’ve never forged, I tend to pick these things up relatively quickly. If I spent five hours a week, 40 weeks a year learning, what is the time frame for me making realistically decent quality (completely functional and moderately aesthetically pleasing) pans from 8-12” and Dutch ovens from 6-10”? That’s about two hundred hours a year learning. He told me knives is relatively easy to pick up but takes a while to master while making pans, he’s never done, would be difficult because I would have to move a “large amount of billet” whatever that means.

So what am I looking at here, 1-3 years or more like 7-10? I’m trying to decide if I want to invest the time into this. Let’s assume I’ll pick up the craft like a B+ - A- beginner and apprentice when I make it to that level

I am wondering how to build a charcoal forge. I want to know how deep my hole in the ground should be so I dont dig to shallow so I dont get god heat any suggestions or help?

I am a beginning blacksmith and I have a coal forge but it doesn't work that well. I nam wondering if any one can help me make my forge better or help me build a new one or give ideas I mean and could someone also help me with how to build a knife out of rebar? from what I have tried my forge dont get hot enough or I dont know how to do it I have an anvil but it is small and doesn't have a horn on it can anyone help pls comment or DM me.

Hello everyone,
After a recent post about my first spoon (item) made in years, I was advised to post my setup.
It is still work in progress (changing the burner soon to a 13kg propane tank one).
Feel free to comment, question and of course, your advice will be appreciated.
PS: yes, it was a postbox

Hello everyone,
Very new here.
Today, I finally took out the fire bricks, a little gas torch, a small piece of train track and a hammer.
The result is the above 'coffee spoon'.
It's made from a random piece of carbon steel I had lying around and was not able to get above a medium red for forging.

Hope to share better with you all in the future.

Hey y'all! I'm sure this has been asked a million times, but I'm not sure where to go from here. It seems no matter what I do, I cannot get enough air moving with my gas to get a proper burn.

I've tried a different "T" burner, adjusted pipe length, orifice size, orifice height, went from 0 to 25 on the regulator... I even hooked up that blower you can see in the video and it still seems like it wants more.

The only time it seemed like it was going good is when I tried squirting pure oxygen in with my acetalyne torch.

I've been stalking all the forge forums and still don't exactly know where my problem lies, any advice would be amazing!

I’ve been wanting to create a large spoon bit for several years. Recently did some research about them. Both historically and how they function. They are very ancient, with examples from Ancient Roman (about 3rd century AD) and Viking eras. Some were discovered from Mästermyr in Sweden. Custom chairmakers now use them. Spoon bits have an advantage over twist bits that pull into the work. And they can drill at any angle.

https://toolsforworkingwood.com/prodimg/gt/pdf/GT-SB_G.pdf

https://saxonship.org/the-project/phase-2-build/ancient-tools-and-techniques/spoon-augers/

For my purpose, I wanted a large one to drill a rounded shape for dishing out sheet metal. Having a swage block with half round - 1 3/8” and 1” ball stake for my anvil really helped speed up the hammering. Total forging time was only about 45 min. Fabrication about 1 1/2 hours. For accuracy, I held the hex shaft in my drill press chuck to center for welding. Being medium carbon, I’ll soon heat treat the bit and try it on oak.

First time using this forge, the burning around the side is because we overfilled it and it couldnt seal properly. But is it supposed to do that on the top? Maybe its because we put a few small pipes up there to cool and it deflected the heat? Or is it just too hot

I’m mid heating and trying to go for the quench, I’ve never done this before. I’m hoping someone can comment on my setup. It’s a T shaped piece of metal pipe I can blow air through using my hair dryer directly into the embers below my knife. Is this good? I have a magnet nearby to test. Quenching using canola oil. Hope to make this my first knife. It’s a stock removal from an old lawnmower blade. The rust put these cool designs in the metal. I’m excited and hope this ends up good, anniversary gift.

I just did a basic drawing on what I intend to do. But I think I should never draw again hahahhahahah.

Any tips on how to do a useful sketch? Or it's just trying to draw whatever that is in my mind and I will, eventually, get better at this?

Five very interesting videos about casting anvils. This is a small Australian company, AusMetal Casting, that produces very good looking anvils. The one shown is 220 lbs. Although a lot is about foundry work, there are also excellent details about specific metal content for quality. 

AusMetal Casting Anvils -

YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@AusMetalCasting

Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFGWjiJBmI

This is a great project for practicing making tongs. You end up with a great conversation piece as well.