[TheForge] berillium check

[Gladish Family]

Ries wrote:

> Industry uses all kinds of different metals all the time, for their 
> own reasons. Some forge very well, others are a disaster. If you can 
> afford trial and error, I suppose junkyard steels are ok, but if I am 
> gonna put a lot of time into something, I find paying a bit extra for 
> a known alloy really is worth it.

The first time I sold a Ram's head fire poker, the customer returned it 
a few months later, not because anything was wrong, but because he 
wanted me to tweak the curve on the sharp end to fit his little stove 
better...I heated that end to bend it, and on the first blow, the poker 
was decapitated- the ram head popped off and rolled away on the floor!
I had used some 5/8 stock that was salvaged from a cement contractor- he 
had used it for stakes and pounded the bejeezus out of each one.
The poker got rebuilt with pure iron, and the ram head got put in a 
prominent place on my shop wall.
That was the last time I used salvaged steel for something I planned to 
sell (with the exception of gas cylinders for bells).
Andy Gladish