Forging, blacksmithing

The stuff that I want to forge, I don't trust myself with it in use, so I've left it all alone.

I looked into buying a pyrometer and setting up a ceramic brick kiln for doing some of this work, particularly for heat treating some things, but not necessarily forging (pressurizing).

I am actually casting medium strength metal parts, which can be used for certain things.

Knife forging can be done with an anvil and a hammer, but doing things that have specific shapes beyond basic or arbitrary shapes, like knives or some other hand tools, things like cylinders, require multi directional pressure points, simultaneously and also require ammonia gas chamber treating with monitored levels, in order to achieve uniform strength.

The art is in the quality of the metal and keeping it free of contaminants. I've seen some forged tools from Harbor Freight shatter, because of carbon contamination in the steel.

My problem with doing this, beyond perhaps a folded blade from high carbon steel, is that the tooling required to make specific parts only makes sense to set up, if you plan on going into production.

You can get some shaping work done with dies on rods held between a trip hammer and the working metal, but it is usually best done with a helper to run the dies and someone else moving the working metal. It is very involved.

Even when I'm casting stuff, it requires a reasonable amount of monitoring and depending on what I'm using the cast part for, requires specific types of ingot metals used for safety and reliability.

If you're going to try it with knives or other blades, set up a small ceramic brick kiln and start with a 150-250lb anvil to see if you want to move up to a trip hammer later. You can also use the same oven for glass working, if you've ever thought about that.

Be sure to get a decent heat suit and appropriate face shielded helmet, when working around that much heat.