Forging is Fun

Wherein Your Humble Protagonist Chooses to Pay Too Much for a Poorly-Crafted Blade

At the gentle goading of a good friend, I signed up for a bladesmithing class at Desert Metal Craft (not to be confused with Desert Metal Works, Switchgear Solutions' old neighboor). I joke that I'm paying 700 bucks for a low-quality knife, and I have to build it myself! But I'm super looking forward to it.

My primary goal in taking this class is to heat metal until it produces light, then hit it with a hammer, producing both clangs and sparks. I've crafted things before. I don't expect my end result to be any better than a vaguely knife-shaped lump of misshapen iron.

Day 1, 2022-09-06

First day of forging class was introduction to shop, safety rules, and social rules. Think I'mma like this place. "If you give anyone trouble about wearing a mask, I have no problem asking you to leave." Sadly, we did not get to beat upon any metal yet.

At the range, every gun is loaded. At the metal shop, everything is hot enough to burn you, sharp enough to cut you, and poisonous. Don't walk beyond the orange line without eye protection. Always wear your respirator in the grinding room. If injure yourself, let someone know. Don't hide it in shame. You will get burned. A hot forge has invisible flames pouring out of it, keep your hands and clothes away from the opening.

We also learned the parts of a knife, so's we could talk about them like educated folk:

Day 2, 2022-09-08

So as to make it easier to hold on to, Mario kindly welded little square stock handles onto our bare slabs, and also ground down the corners of the points to reduce fish-mouthing:

Lots of heating and beating later, I have a misshapen lump of iron, vaguely resembling a knife:

To get there, I hammered too hard, twisted the steel, bounced the hammer off the anvil, moved the hammer instead of the piece (contrary to instruction) and made many other errors. But such is the nature of learning... Here you can see me coming in with a hammer blow that is too vertical. It should be perpendicular to the line of my choil, so as to straighten my spine:

And here you see me flattening out the thickness I made forming the choil and straightening the spine. I like this part, just put the piece flat on the anvil, and hit it straight up & down, hard:

I am pleased to report that I set myself on fire exactly zero times, and that despite coming close a few times, I haven't yet hit myself in the head with a hammer bounced off an anvil.