Took me 6 months to realize I was forging way too cold

I was hammering away on some leaf keychains, getting frustrated that my edges kept cracking and splitting. My mentor stopped by my bench and just touched my steel, then asked why I was working it so far past cherry red into black. I checked my temp with a magnet for the first time and realized I'd been losing non-magnetic heat way before I started hammering. Now I reheat the second it stops throwing sparks and my leaves come out clean every time. Any of you guys ever find out you were working a color wrong for months?

2 comments

2 Comments

tarar271mo ago

Isn't going by sparks a pretty rough way to judge heat, especially in a shop with different lighting conditions? I've found that a magnet check is way more reliable than hoping your eyes see the same color every day, since forge scale and ambient light can fool you. Not saying your sparks method doesn't work for you, but I'd be careful telling new folks to trust that over a simple magnet test.

the_rowan1mo ago

Doesn't this whole thing just boil down to people trusting their own little tricks over actually learning the basics first? I see it everywhere, not just in shops, like folks who swear by a certain shortcut in software instead of learning the proper workflow. Eventually you run into a situation where your crutch doesn't work anymore, and then you're stuck.