c/blacksmiths

Hot take: everyone told me to switch to a gas forge but I stuck with my coal setup

Last spring some guy at the guild meeting said I was wasting time with coal. Said I'd never get even heat for welding. Kept at it though, spent $40 on a new firepot from Centaur Forge and adjusted my air gate. Got my first clean billet weld three weeks later on a Saturday. Has anyone else had better luck sticking with the old ways after everyone told you to upgrade?

I still don't get why everyone likes using a power hammer for damascus

Met a guy named Mike at the Ohio Blacksmith Conference back in 2019. He told me he does all his pattern welding by hand on a 200 pound anvil. He said power hammers just mash the layers together too fast and you lose control of the pattern. I tried his way with a 20 layer billet and got way cleaner twists than my press ever gave me. Has anyone else dumped their power tool for hand work and stuck with it?

Hot take: quenching in warm oil ruined my last batch of blades

Everyone says to keep your oil between 120-140F for a good quench. I tried it at room temp on purpose after my heater broke last Tuesday. Six out of eight blades came out way harder and I didn't get any cracking. The two that didn't harden were thin scrap pieces anyway. Been doing it cold ever since and it works better for me. Any other smiths tried the opposite of standard advice and had it work out?

Just realized my grandpa's old anvil is actually worth a ridiculous amount

Bought a fancy anvil off Craigslist for $400 turned out it was a cast iron boat anchor someone painted

Hot take: I gave up on a clutch furnace and went back to a side blast for small jobs.

Everyone says a clutch furnace is the way to go for even heat, but I found it complicated things for my outdoor setup in Lancaster County. With a simple side blast, I can control the fire better for things like hooks and small brackets under a quarter inch thick. Does anyone else stick with older methods for certain projects, or am I just stubborn?

Been forging for 10 years and just discovered using a wet wooden stump instead of an anvil for dish shaping

Was hammering out a 14 inch carbon steel wok in my shop in Austin last month and got so frustrated with the shallow curve on my anvil that I grabbed a wet oak stump from the woodpile, and the metal sank into that soft surface perfectly on the first try - has anyone else ditched the anvil for certain shapes?

Vent: That $60 set of farrier rasps I bought online were terrible

I figured I'd save some money and grabbed a pack of three rasps off a discount site for shoeing my own horses. Big mistake. They started clogging up with metal shavings after like the second pass on a hoof, and the teeth just wore down flat within maybe 15 minutes of actual work. I ended up spending another $45 at a local tack shop for a single Nicholson that cut smooth and clean for months. So I lost a solid $60 on those cheap rasps, plus the frustration of having to reschedule two trims while I waited for the replacement. Anyone else run into junk tools from those online surplus sites?

Spent 12 hours straight grinding my anvil face to get it flat and it still has a low spot

Finally figured out after 8 hours that my cheap angle grinder was warping the steel from heat buildup, so I switched to hand filing with a sharp new mill file and got it way closer in just 4 hours has anyone else run into heat distortion messing with their grinding?

Took me three tries to get my forge welds to actually hold on a gate latch

Kept having cold shuts until I figured out I was pulling the metal out of the fire too early and not letting the flux settle properly has anyone else struggled with getting that sweet spot on the heat?

Bought a cheap anvil off Craigslist for $150 and it chipped like butter on the first heat

That thing was clearly cast iron painted to look like steel, wasted a whole Saturday fixing a bent rake before the face cracked open, has anyone else gotten burned by a fake anvil online?

Saw a stat that 9 out of 10 anvils are fakes or damaged

I was digging through some old blacksmithing forums last night (you know, the deep archive stuff) and found this survey from 2019 that said 9 out of 10 anvils sold online are either cast iron fakes or have hidden cracks. That really got under my skin because I paid $500 for mine from a guy on Craigslist in Seattle, and now I’m worried it’s one of those. The post said most people don’t even check the rebound or ring test before buying. Has anyone else here gotten burned on a bad anvil?

Broke my favorite rounding hammer on a 2-inch drift punch job last Tuesday

I was forging a set of gate hinges out in the shop when the hammer head flew clean off the handle mid-swing and dented a brand new anvil I just paid $400 for, has anyone dealt with a replacement handle that just won't stay tight after a couple days?

Spent $150 on a fancy tong blank set that was completely wrong.

I bought a set of tong blanks from a guy at a hammer-in last summer, thinking I'd save time by just bending them to fit. Turns out the steel was way too soft and they deformed when I tried to grab hot stock. Anyone else get burned by impulse buys at demonstrations?

Vent: That customer who kept telling me how to weld, while I was running his job

Last month I had this guy come in with a busted trailer hitch for his landscaping rig. He stood right over my shoulder for two hours telling me how he watched some YouTube video about mig welding. Kept saying I needed to turn up the heat and move slower, even though I've been doing this for 12 years. I finally stopped the weld and handed him the gun. Said "show me how it's done." He stared at me for a solid 10 seconds, mumbled something about having to get back to work, and walked to his truck. Thing is, he came back the next day and apologized. Said his cousin who's a welder told him he was being a jerk. Anyone else ever have a customer try to micromanage your forge or anvil work?

The day I realized I was quenching way too early

For about two years I'd been quenching blades right off the forge, thinking I was getting a good hardness. Then I watched a guy at a meetup in Columbus drop a file test on a blade I'd made and it skated off like nothing. He asked me if I was normalizing first and I had no clue what he meant. Anybody else have that moment where they found out their whole heat treat process was backwards?

The day I tried to forge a small garden trowel for my wife

I got the steel nice and hot, about 1,800 degrees, and started shaping it on the anvil. Just as I was getting the curve right, our new puppy, a golden retriever, ran into the shop and grabbed the hot steel right out of my tongs with his mouth. He didn't get hurt, thank goodness, but he dropped it and it landed perfectly in my old steel-toed boot, melting a hole right through the toe. I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing the trowel while smelling like burnt leather. Has anyone else had a shop helper cause a complete mess like that?

A goat ate my tongs in Boise

I was doing a demo at a small farm fair last month, and a curious goat wandered over from the petting zoo. It grabbed my favorite pair of cross-pein tongs right off the anvil stand and started chewing on the wooden handle. I had to trade the farmer three hand-forged hooks to get them back, and they're still covered in slobber. Has anyone else had an animal cause shop problems?

I finally gave in and tried that Japanese water stone sharpening method everyone raves about

I was sure my old Arkansas oilstone was fine, but after seeing a guy in Boise get a mirror edge on a cold chisel in under 5 minutes, I had to admit it works. Anyone have a good source for a 1000/6000 grit combo stone that won't break the bank?

I used to think a coal forge was better than propane for a beginner setup

After trying both for six months in my backyard shop, the propane forge just made everything easier, especially temperature control on simple projects like hooks. I spent less time messing with the fire and more time actually hammering, which was a game changer for learning. Has anyone else made a switch like this and found it helped them focus on the basics?

Shoutout to the guy at the Asheville hammer-in who showed me how to hold a cross peen

Honestly, I've been swinging a hammer for eight years and always held my cross peen like a regular one, choked up near the head. This older smith named Frank watched me for a minute and just said, 'You're fighting the tool, hold it at the very end of the handle.' Tried it and the control and rebound were totally different. Anyone else have a basic grip thing they got wrong for way too long?

My old way of quenching was just asking for trouble

I used to dunk everything straight into a bucket of water, which led to more cracks than a dry riverbed. After a blade I spent 6 hours on snapped last Tuesday, I switched to using warm canola oil for my high carbon steel. Anyone else make a simple change that saved a project?

I used to think a cold shop was just part of the job

For years, I worked in my garage forge in Michigan and just accepted that my hands would be numb by lunch in the winter. I thought a cold shop was a badge of honor, you know? But last month, I spent a day helping a friend in his heated workspace, and it was a total game changer. I was able to hold my hammer right for the full eight hours, and my control on the scrolls for a gate commission was just so much better. The metal didn't cool as fast between heats either, which saved me a ton of time. I realized being cold wasn't tough, it was just making my work sloppy. I'm now saving up for a proper heater because that one day proved it's not a luxury, it's a tool for better work. Has anyone else made a change like this that seemed obvious after?

I swore by my old hand crank blower for years until I borrowed a friend's electric one for a Damascus billet.

The steady, hands-free air flow let me focus on the weld and gave me a much cleaner stack with zero cold shuts, which completely changed my view after that single afternoon in his Tacoma shop.

I bought a cheap anvil stand kit online and it cost me over $300 in the end

I saw an ad for a bolt-together anvil stand kit for about $80. It looked solid in the pictures, so I ordered it to save time building my own. When it arrived, the steel tubing was way thinner than it seemed, and the bolts were a soft grade that started to strip as I tightened them. I tried to make it work for a few weeks, but the whole thing shook and rang so bad it was hurting my work. I ended up having to buy all new, thicker steel and proper hardware to rebuild it from scratch, which ran me another $250. The whole experience was a total waste. Has anyone found a good, truly ready-to-go stand that doesn't need fixing right away?