I also like the way my chin creases look when exaggerated and filed with soot…
Oh, it started off fine, my second project in the level one blacksmithing class… I cleared out my clinker box in the forge, dumped the ash and the clinker, separated the raw coal from the usable coke, and had my fire-starting newspaper ‘jellyfish’ ready…
The instructor gave the demonstration… we were learning forge welding… where you take two pieces of metal and use heat to bond them into oneness… I had my tools and the instructions laid out… and the metal bar on the left that is what this project starts out as.
We were making trivets… three-legged stands for cooking or putting hot pans on… and the first cold bends were easy enough…
I was still looking cool, clean, and confident at this point… although, seriously, that hair on the back of my neck has to go… not only is it ugly, it is actually a fire hazard near all those forges. You get hot embers floating around.
I heated my corners to make some flat bends to turn this ‘U’ shape into something resembling a paperclip…
That is when things began to go wrong… and I wasn’t even at the hard part yet. notice that my two bends are going in two directions… one is up and down, one is on its side… how did I even do that???
I had to start over… and once again I remind you that we weren’t at the forge welding part yet… but that does look pretty good.
Oh yeah, I had the basic triangle shape… now it was just a question of getting those to ends to bond together in the forge… and also the other two edges needed to be welded, so that all three corners could be flattened and pounded out into the two-inch-long legs, which we would then bend down and put a bend in to make little, curled feet.
Forge welding is both simple and tricky. You heat the metal to just below the point where you ruin it… color is everything… then you brush it with a steel brush to remove particles that will weaken the weld. Then you reheat it, then you sprinkle boric acid on it… (in that can in the picture above)… then you get it super hot… without burning it… and then pound it together. But not regular pounding… you have to hit and hold… leaving the hammer on the metal… for a few strokes. You do this until, when you hit it, it sound like it is one piece of metal and not two… sounds easy, right? And it can look… and sound… like one piece… but then later, when you are heating it again to pound it out into the two-inch legs, the weld can fail… and the thing splits apart, and is now too thin to forge weld again… and that is exactly what happened… and not only to me.
Oh, I had such high hopes at this point. Now, to show what happens when metal is heated too much, here is a photo of that little side project I am working on…
You may… or may not… remember that I am also making a pair of railroad spike knives, an idea I got from a TV show. I did manage to put twists in the spikes for the handles, even thought this is really high carbon steel, and very hard. It takes a long time to heat it up…
If you look at the tip of that ‘knife’… where I am pounding out the blade… you see what happens when you leave metal in the fire too long… I burnt high carbon steel…
I won’t bore you with more details. That is my project. My other two welds held, but not the main one… the two unattached ends… They came apart when I was pounding them out. I tried to redo the forge weld. No luck. I finally ended up twisting them together just so they would make a leg. I gave up trying to make the other two look good and just bent them over so at least I had a trivet. I didn’t turn it in. I have to retake this class.
I am not a quitter, and I’m not giving up… but I am so bummed out right now. But just so you know, you can put a hot pan on it.
Pouring My Art Out 
What if you just make one side longer, then fold it over the shorter side?
well now you tell me
You are not a quitter and this is why you are awesome. You can put a hot plate on it, so there’s your first trivet.
P.S. SBs comment made me spit out my water. Too funny.
That guy is funny…
Art! You’re just starting! Give yourself a break. You’ll get better. (Who am I to talk. That’s how I felt at first in Dental Lab class when fabricating dentures, and in pottery class when trying to make, well, anything at all.)
Hang in there!
I will… thanks
BTW, I sucked at arc welding, eons ago in high school. If given the chance, I’d try it again in a heartbeat.
I wish I had kept at some of the stuff I did in those days… others, not so much.
From the narrative, you have a good understanding of the process. The rest will take practice. Thomas Edison said, “he didn’t fail, found 300 ways of doing something wrong.”
I know, but I am all art side of the brain… I assumed this would come more naturally… dang it…
I’m glad you aren’t giving up! Keep at it.
Thanks.
You have to stick with it, Art. Otherwise, the terrorists will win.
HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is there any opportunity for you to practice Art – put in some extra time? You have to get a feel for the metal so your soul flows into it. That just comes by repeated failures. Don’t be too hard on yourself – you’ve never done anything remotely like this before in your life. There is no frame of reference – you are creating it as you go. There is a show on TV here called “Restoration” that deals with restoring old cars – with perfection. They are a company just north of Toronto (Brampton) and are amongst the best in the world. Anyway, they set out on a project to build an old and very rare French touring car of which none were currently in existence. It was a $ 5 million project. and required that they build from scratch every single panel and piece of metal. the trick was that the original metal was magnesium and it has a very very narrow range of heat for welding – over that and it catches fire. They put their best welder on it and he tried for weeks and kept setting it on fire. Then to use his own words: “One day i was trying yet again when suddenly i realized I was doing it – i was welding the magnesium.” Once he had that down it went much faster. He said there was no way to put his new skill into words that basically he became a part of the metal and could ‘feel” it.
That’s what you need to do Art, and that is simply failing until you no longer fail.
I know, I let off a little steam here now and then, but I do see what you are saying.