Thread: Forging tip: Avoid leaving deep hammer marks

While I was reworking a 3/4" piece of W2 drill rod tonight, I noticed something that might be helpful to those just starting to forge.

Deep hammer marks are death when you transition from the forge to the grinder. It's easy to end up with a nasty gouge in the tang that will take forever to grind out.

A well-forged blade will come out with a smooth surface on the sides of the tang, almost like a hot-rolled bar of steel. As you're working on the tang, you want to keep flipping the blade over after every few hammer blows. The side against the anvil will get smoothed out nicely.

What I remembered this evening is how to check your progress. You can't really evaluate the surface of the steel very well when it's in front of you on the anvil. Instead, examine it while it's heating up again in the forge. The steel looks dark against the intense light in the forge, and you can see shadows and bumps where you've got gouges that need to be worked out. If you move the blade around, the forge fire will illuminate all of your mistakes.

Josh