I was heating up this spike I found near the old railyard outside of town, figured it'd be good practice for a basic blade, but after the third quench a crack ran right through the middle. Turns out those spikes are usually high-carbon steel that can't handle a sudden cool down unless you normalize it first. Has anyone else had a project completely fail on them from a simple misstep like that?
I spent 6 months ignoring a tiny crack near the edge of my 200 lb Fisher anvil. Thought it was just cosmetic until last week a chunk of the face flew off during a heavy upset and landed 3 feet away. Took me 2 days to grind it flat and re-dress the edge. Anyone else had a hidden crack turn into a real problem?
Had a Peter Wright anvil that served me for 3 years, but I kept putting off fixing a tiny crack near the heel until it split clean off during a heavy drawout last Tuesday. Anyone else had a tool fail because you got lazy about maintenance?
I was burning through 50 pounds of coal a week and fighting with clinker buildup. Tried a propane setup last month and the heat is way more consistent, plus no more cleaning out the firepot. Has anyone else made that switch and found it worth it?
My 3lb cross peen hammer head cracked right through the eye last Saturday night. I was working on a hot 1 inch round bar, missed the hit just a bit, and heard that sickening ping sound. Looked down and saw a hairline crack running from the eye down toward the face. Two more strikes and the whole head split in half, flew right off the handle, and almost hit my shop window. Good thing I wear safety glasses because a piece of steel glanced off my cheek. Now I'm checking every hammer I own for hidden stress fractures before each session. Any of you guys ever have a head fail on you like that or was I just unlucky with that one steel batch?
I kept getting cold shuts in my welding when joining steel for gate hinges, so I tried heating the pieces to a bright orange and hammering faster than I ever have before. It actually worked on the first try, no more weak spots where the metal didn't fuse right. Has anyone else tried changing their hammer speed or timing to fix a recurring weld problem?
This guy had been doing it for 55 years, pulled a busted cross peen out of his truck and said don't learn the hard way, so now I always quench in warm oil and I haven't lost a blade to stress fractures since.
I figured it'd be a cheap experiment, but man the smoke was insane. The spike came out way harder than when I use water though. It also left this weird crust I had to grind off for 20 minutes. Is the extra hardness worth dealing with that mess, or stick with water? Curious what you guys do with salvage steel.
Been using steel drift pins for years in my shop outside Nashville. Watched a guy at the Southern Forge gathering split his hand open when a steel pin mushroomed and caught the hammer wrong. Switched to brass that same weekend and haven't looked back. Any of you guys ever deal with a steel pin that flared up bad on you?
I was at the Albuquerque forge-in last Saturday showing how to make a basic fire poker. Got about halfway through the weld when I heard this pop and the billet just split open. Had about 40 people watching me. I just laughed, walked over to the scrap bin, grabbed a different piece of steel and started over. Nobody really cared, they actually asked more questions about what went wrong. Has anyone else had a demo go sideways like that?
That old hammer finally gave out on me last Tuesday while I was drawing out a horseshoe in my shop near Eugene. The head split right down the eye and flew off into my garage door. I only dropped $40 on it back in 2009 and I used it nearly every day since. Has anyone else had a favorite tool just quit without warning like that?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?