[bcks]

Took my daughter to check out a blacksmithing class in Brooklyn and was pleasantly surprised to find there was no open fire at all. The iron and steel are heated by an induction machine. Just use the tongs to hold up your material near the coil and press the pedal and voila, it soon starts to glow red hot. The space is small, maybe 3 students at a time plus a teacher, but it was bright, tidy, and clean. Not at all the dark, sweaty cave of fire and fumes that I'd imagined, and interesting to see tech slightly more modern than fire.

[1letterunixname]

Cookie-dough coffee can forge*: https://youtu.be/FmEb1YZScxc

DIY induction heater**: https://youtu.be/wKFnk4R54ZQ

* Unsafe because it depends on combustion and creates nanofines/ultrafines

** Unsafe because there's no current limiting, no temperature limiting, no grounding, and no crucible confinement

[mkii]

I'm hesitant to get into physical project hobbies (e.g. low-voltage electronics, wood-working, 3D printing) because I'm afraid of all the hazards that I don't know about. Seeing these warnings (while greatly appreciated in a theoretical sense for me) just reinforces this fear I have.

[kibwen]

That's an incredible application of induction heating that I hadn't considered. How big was the coil?

[toomuchtodo]

Induction forge.

https://youtu.be/P_STrnP__D4

[hef19898]

You can even do induction hardening. Used for complex parts, of if you want hardening with a very well defined penetration depth.

The place I used to go had a gas furnace to heat the metal. A pitty I didn't find time to go there for ages now... Only downside of gas furnace, closed on on end, is the limited length of the stuff you can put in. I have an idea I want to try to forge longer things, but again, it is months now I didn't have time to get back to it...

[bcks]

Maybe 6 inch diameter.

[ExoticPearTree]

But is it really blacksmithing if you're using real fire? I mean that's the idea, to heat metal in an open fire and then hammer it, rinse and repeat.

[eesmith]

The idea is to heat metal until it can be shaped more easily, traditionally by hand tools. That does not require a fire. In Roman mythology, the blacksmith Hephaestus used a volcano as his forge.

Traditionally it required a fire, yes, but that doesn't make it essential. I use silverware which is not made of silverware.

As a point of definition, in general use, a forge is not an "open fire". Eg, https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/open+fire defines "open fire" as "A fire not contained by a fireplace or stove" and https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/open-... defines it as "a fire that you light outside, for example to cook on, or a fire in a space in a wall of a building, with a chimney to take the smoke away".

As I understand it, blacksmithing is typically not done outside, where it can be too bright to use the color of the metal to judge the temperature, and the fire in the forge requires some sort of forced air (eg, a foot-powered bellows forcing air through a tuyere into a constrained fire). This means the forge is not an open fire.

TIL blacksmithing has its own definition for "open fire", which is distinct from "stock fire". See http://www.faadooengineers.com/online-study/post/first-year/... . This means a blacksmith wouldn't say they only use an open fire.

[tsss]

The heat and the smells are such a big part of the experience. They're really doing the students a disservice by taking that away.