[TheForge] 1045 uses

[Bruce Freeman]

Charles: 

That's a nearly perfect bit of artso-babble to accompany RR spike
knives (etc.) at the local art mart.  Just drop the "mental defect" part
and give it a positive spin, and you can up your prices ten-fold!

Bruce
NJ

>>> xlch58@swbell.net 02/19/03 11:27PM >>>
I would agree for the professional smith, but for the hobbiest smith (

by far the majority in headcount if not output)  scrounging has more to

do with cherished mental defect than economics.   I was picking up odd

scraps of steel from the side of the road  and diving dumpsters long 
before I started smithing.  Smithing gave me the skills to actually put

the mounting pile of junk to use.   This defect is shared by more than

the smith's -- why otherwise would people inspecting your wares 
gravitate more to  a knife formed from a railroad spike or old
horseshoe 
than a comparably finished one out of a new higher carbon steel blank. 
 
This sort of recycling is a graphic and gratifying testament to the 
inheritly plastic and transmutable nature of metal, at odds with what 
the eyes and hands are telling you.  To many, a spike knife is no
longer 
an inanimate object, but a living one, moving from one state to
another. 
 Frozen in time, it gives you the sense that if you look away for a 
moment, it will complete the transition.   I believe this is the same 
reason customer's so often want the rough drive hook they watched you 
forge, rather than the nicer finished one on the table.  The one on the

table is no different to them than the bubble wrapped inanimate objects

they face everyday.  The one in your tongs is alive and mutable, they 
know because they saw it, and that image of it will keep in their minds

eye. 

I started this out talkin about a smithing desease, sorry to wax 
philosophic.  Regarding the old spring steel, generally I anneal it a 
couple of  times before forging to normalize it.  I haven't had a 
problem yet, but I am not using it for power hammer dies where failure

could more easily result in dangerous shrapnel.


Charles