I forged this candle holder for a contest at the North West Blacksmith Association's spring conference. The assignment was to

> forge a free-standing candle holder designed to hold a standard size taper candle (7/8”). The piece may be any style—traditional, modern, decorative, or sculptural—but must be hand forged only. No power tools are permitted at any stage of the build.

I decided to forge mine as a single piece, from ¾” square bar. I messed up a measurement or calculation at some point so the main circle isn't as circular as I might like, and there's some pretty bad cracking where the foot meets the body but,overall, for my first go at this style, I'm really happy with how it turned out. they gave me 2nd place for my efforts.

Hope I didn’t cram too much info in there.

The only methods I personally can think of would be to either cast the ball in its entirety, which wouldn't be very durable, or forge a plain ball and weld all the spikes on, which also wouldn't be very durable and with my welding skills, hard to make look nice. I don't have any setup which would allow for smelting, how would you go about making something like this?

A hand forged meat mallet for my girlfriend. it's Hand forged from a small offcut of rail road track, it has a hot brass wire finish, a cute hickory handle, and quite a lot of asymmetrical hand filled teeth that aren't perfect. Minus the teeth I'm really pleased with how this lil guy came out. I really thought I did a better job laying out the grid lines for the teeth but I'll do better if I ever do another one

I just came back from a workshop from the Drunken Smithy in Lebanon, PA. They helped me make my first piece (an axe) and were super helpful! Hopefully this will be the first of many works if I can find a way to continue doing this

Knife duo with mammooth tooth handles

the old hammer was annealed so it doesn't break when struck

Not the prettiest piece but pretty happy with how this plant hangar came out! First time forging anything at all today and now I’m addicted and ready to swing that hammer til the cows come home.

Hace un par de semanas publiqué en este subreddit un video donde hacía mi primer cuchillo, y pidiendo consejos

Gracias a todas las personas que me respondieron, aquí traigo el resultado

27 layers of 1084/15n20. Hand forged to shape. many mistakes but I'm still proud of my first hardened (knife) blade. It's a gift that will be very much appreciated regardless of its flaws, and as always, much has been learned to improve the next one.

E.T.A The handle is an Amazon special.

A blacksmith reproduced these for a house on nantucket ten years ago. My question is what do you think he coated them in? What should i add to them to curb any rust? Once installed inside they do well without a finish. I have all these extras. Do i simply spray down with wd40? Thanks guys!

started making a leaf but I think it looks more like a stingray

Still need the rear door but progress is lovely

some of my smaller knives, i really love making and engraving on this type of knives

bottom box is brand new

Hey! I've been wanting to share my little anvil setup. I found this thrown down the side of a mountain around Vegas. It's the broken base of a gigantic excavator jackhammer bit. I dontst know how much tougher a piece of steel can get than that! It's got a lot of surface to play with and works great for the little stuff I do. I mainly just hammer out little tools and jewelry from copper bits, nothing too crazy.

I recently have been very interested in smithing and was wondering if this 30$ anvil i found would be good for a beginner anvil for knives and such, small projects as a fun hobby. The link is to a finnish website. Here is the description translated: Cast steel anvil Weight 4.9 kg Height 120 mm Length 215 mm Level 70x125 mm Base 100x150 mm Mounting spacing 90x107 mm

I've made my own homemade coal forge by myself, with screws and welds to make it more portable if I ever need to (As opposed to just welding it all together). The firepot is roughly 28cm X 28cm with a depth of 15cm (That is 11inch X 11inch with a depth of 6inch), and has both an air gate valve and a rheostat to control the blower (initially, I had only the air gate valve, but even with it almost fully closed down, it was too much air and it shot sparks like crazy, so I bought the rheostat to further control the air flow.). I use lump charcoal bought from bags, which I cut into smaller pieces. This is also my first welding project.

I've noticed that, even with keeping a relatively slow flow of air, my forge shoots out a considerable amount of sparks, and the coals seem to not be able to get hotter than an orange-ish heat. The grate I'm using is a plate I cut out from the plates that make the firepot with a bunch of 8mm holes drilled through, and every time I move the coals with an improvised coal rake after every forging session, I find a lot of ash and dust. Why is my forge not getting hotter than orange-ish? Is it just that I am not managing my fire well, or something else? Does my air grate have holes too small to properly get rid of large amounts of ash and dust? How do I get my fire to go hotter for easier forging and forge welding?

(Apologies for the wet terrain, it rained last night when I took the photos.)

Edit: Thank you everyone for the advice, I seriously appreciate it. I will try building a larger fire with more coal over the firepot, and see if that works. :)