Drawing out stock

[metal bender]

I watched myself on video once and saw immediately that I was hitting with my arm more than my body and losing a lot of power. Shifting to using my whole shoulder and body behind the hammer changed my work and reduced fatigue significantly. The other adjustment that helped was reading the heat better and working toward the end of a heat rather than putting the steel back early out of caution. Every reheat is time and fuel, you want to extract as much useful work as possible from each heat without crossing into working black. Forge the thick sections first in each heat because they lose heat faster than thin sections.

 

[Alan]

That’s the kind of lesson video exposes instantly. Efficient hammer control and heat management make forging feel completely different afterward.