Thread: Hobby-level forging

I don't have tools for this but I believe I have access to a metal smelter...

I'm sure I can get access to a blacksmith workshop, a crude one but it's not hard to build a real hot fire pit with some coal. Metal smelting... I need some serious heat for, but I'm sure a few grams of exotic metals (I can obtain chromium and titanium, maybe tungsten) in a 200 gram blank of mostly high-quality steel (read: recycled DE razor blades) won't make stainless steel, but will make a rather hard metal.

Actually, I could use a nickel-based alloy; but if I made something like that, I'd probably base it on Inco, which means it would be difficult to shape into a razor blade form (I'd need to forge it into a wedge... at somewhere around 1500-1800 degrees) much less hone (it would eat your hone).

Metallurgy aside, I could probably make a decently hard blank with a hammer, an anvil, a forge. This would be cheap (hell, it's small, I could make the forge out of a coffee can and a propane torch, or a piece of firebrick).

The difficult part comes in machining the blank. First off, I have to cut it to razor shape. Then I have to grind it down to have a blade on it. Then it needs to be honed crudely on a wheel, I guess. Then honed by hand to put a shaving edge on it.

It's all the fine work that's difficult; but more importantly, requires tools I don't have. If I wanted to build a forging workshop, it'd take what? Not much I'd hope. Probably doable in $10,000 to start-to-finish make a razor? I suppose I could fit a computer-controlled metal grinder in that (metal lathe etc), those are nice. You program it to cut a piece of metal to spec and it brings a spinning grinding tool against it and does the deed for you.

And yeah, the metal could easily be heat-treated, and tempered.

EDIT: Wow missed the point though. I don't want to spend $10,000, I want to spend $100 lol... or as much closer to $100 than $10,000 as I can get.

So are you saying you are going to do this or just daydreaming?

Just daydreaming. It'd be fun but I don't think I could without a huge time and money investment. I mean, I could build guitar amps like, day 1. $50 soldering iron.

hmm: most hobbyist skip the smelting alloys and machining parts and concentrate on that middle area. the fire, hammering, grinding, quenching.

Yep... if you already have basic tools, invest in some ceramic wool blanket to insulate your forge, firebricks, a good "variable" torch like the Bernzomatic JTH7... a piece of steel to pound on (you can put in a concrete base to start) and some good files (Nicholson with handles). That should set you back maybe 75$... enough to buy raw material to forge.

Coming from the guy that just blew a grand on an anvil & forge...

Originally Posted by v76

Yep... if you already have basic tools, invest in some ceramic wool blanket to insulate your forge, firebricks, a good "variable" torch like the Bernzomatic JTH7... a piece of steel to pound on (you can put in a concrete base to start) and some good files (Nicholson with handles). That should set you back maybe 75$... enough to buy raw material to forge.

Coming from the guy that just blew a grand on an anvil & forge...

Pictures, please!

Chris L

Hey Chris! I will... right after I bolt down my anvil stand this week. Found a 300 pounder locally... a deal I couldn't pass on! I should be ready to forge in the next 2 weeks or so! I'm still scavenging parts to make an EERF KMG grinder clone and then I should be set, tools-wise for a good while!

Originally Posted by v76

...and then I should be set, tools-wise for a good while!

I hate to break this to you in a public forum. No, you won't.

I have found that I NEVER have enough tools, there is ALWAYS something "needed or wanted....

Haha I know that coming from an audio electronics background! I guess it's just wishful thinking... but Tim Lively's unplugged video is very inspirational in the "keeping it simple" way of thinking... the girlfriend also.. haha!