Thread: Cold forging? Pro's and Con's?

Actually I am talking about hammering on soft annealed steel straight from the supplier like 1" x 0.250" from Aldo Bruno or Flatground.com, no running forge involved. Most of my knives and razors to date (I want more to be forged, but not to date) have been stock removal & the steel has never gotten hotter than your hands can handle.

If you want to thin .25 down to the thickness of a knife, by hammering at room temperature, you're still going to bust your elbow. And possibly your anvil. And while the steel will be soft when you get it, hammering it down will work harden it.
If heat is your issue, hammer very early in the morning or late in the evening or at night. A US friend of mine is a professional smith, and during heatwaves he works at night.

I am not kidding about your elbow, and as some people here can attest, once your elbow is on the fritz, it can take a loooooong time to heal.

My mostly 2ndhand belief is that it is more the heat than the hammering that will cause grain refinement... not saying the experienced smiths who use it, dont know what they are talking about... just that normalizing is what happens or part of what happens when colder forging is done. So a good normalizing routine would give all the benefits minus the risks...

Having said that... i love audio and some of the things i hear is called wishful hearing by the engineering types... except those engineers who are into audio and believe their biggest obstacle to great audio was their education... it helped at first but then it got in the way...

i am not educated enough to make up my mind about cold forging and cycling either way.