hey i'm new to smithing stuff
i know i need a forge and stuff like but where can i some good cheap steels that i don't have to go to a junk yard to get. i really need hel in figering this out, i'm also and artist and love making things..and i've always wanted to make some swords so can you guys please help me out?

kagegallant, I'm still kinda new at this stuff myself but I have been buying my new steel from Admiral Steel. been getting good service so far, the pros here will prob. have some other places too. Good Luck & welcome to the CKD. Mike Sader

thanks for the help mike do you have any web sites i should check out? and to you how hot coal will burn? i thinking about builting a coal forge? and what types of tools do you need?

Welcome to the forums! Great place to learn tons about everything dealing with knifemaking and blacksmithing. A good blacksmithing site to visits is www.anvilfire.com (http://www.anvilfire.com) Admiral steel's site is at www.admiralsteel.com (http://www.admiralsteel.com)
If your going to do general blacksmithing coal is a good thing, but for knives I would highly recommend going with gas (propane). The propane forges are easy to build, cheap to run, and tons eaisier to learn. As far as tools go...........you can never have enough of them! Hammers, tongs, anvils, and a billion other things come in handy. I make most of my own tools, and often find myself making an tool for one specific job, and then hanging it on the rack, thinking "someday I'm gona need that again!" Once you get rolling, you'll be looking for power hammers, presses, and who knows what else. Most of us agree that it is an addiction at best, and a termainal disease at worst! :lol:
Let us know if we can be of help!

thanks ed, but i'm low on cash how much is it to builted a pron forge..and i feel more drawen to daggers,short swords and and swords (long swords) and then i need to find a good yet cheep grinder in the 100-130 doller ranger since i have a belt sander how old were you when you started ed? i'm 19 and and i hope that i can do this and be good at it lol well thanks for you help so far

Another site more oriented towards general blacksmithing, but with a HECK of lot of extremely knowledgeable folks is www.keenjunk.com (http://www.keenjunk.com)

Hope this helps!
Paul F.

Check out the tribal forums and tool time for the cheap method. What's your location? There might be somebody close you could visit with.

Any reason not to go to the junkyard? There's an abundance of good cheap steel available as scrap. If not a junkyard, then a mechanic shop for coil springs and leaf springs, amongst other things.

Junkyards are a wonderful place to get materials for general blacksmithing, and for learning. The trick is to find something that is "repeatable". This means that you either need to expend the time and effort it takes to learn what type of steel items are made of, or insure that a sufficient quantity is available of a given item, so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel with your heat treating methods each time you make a trip to get more steel.
I personally used scrap steel exclusively for the first few years. I finally got tired of having to experiment each and every time I got a new batch of scrapyard steel, and decided that I would actually be saving money (read lots of time) by buying my steel new, and knowing exactly what I was working with. I've not regretted it for a moment. Oh, I still use scrap steel for making tools, jigs, and such, but never for blades. That is one of the reasons I don't turn out much cable/wire damascus anymore. Each scrap piece I was getting was a little different, requiring me to experiment and find the best heat treatment with each new blade I would create. As I started getting more orders, my time became more precious, an I eventually went to all new steels, including cable, for blades.

I got this from another thread, don't remember which one www.ivba.org/jy_steel.html (http://www.ivba.org/jy_steel.html) for some steel ideas

Ed - I can definitely see buying new steel for a dependable, known product for larger production and a professional. No argument from this quarter on that.

But he is just starting out and wants to do it cheaply. I'm relatively new to forging myself. I have a pretty good amount of knowledge, but definitely need to work on my personal experience level. Plus, being a fellow poor 19 year old, I don't like paying for new steel when old is available for much less or even free (especially if your cousin is a mechanic ;-)

Especially for a beginner, scrap steel is plenty high-quality and no big loss if you mess up. You can make excellent blades from the stuff (depending of course on if you have the right kind of scrap steel i.e. springs) for a small investment, which I think is what he's aiming for.

And not exactly a disagreement, but a slight difference of opinion on forges. I've worked at both, though I haven't used a gas forge for blades. I like both but I really like coal forges if I can get good coal. You can hold onto the actual knife a lot longer than you can with a gas forge (i.e. no dragon breath). That's good if you have few tongs! ;-) Plus you can have a really small fire that is still plenty hot on the inside. And if it comes down to it, you can go Neo-Tribal and fuel it off of charcoal!

I hope that all of this came across the right way. No disrespect intended at all, I just wanted to provide an alternate line of reasoning that I am following at the present time. Yours is great, but mine fits my level more.

Arrrggghhh!!! I should have been spending this time writing a report on Beowulf!! ;-)

Our first forge design was taken for a web search. The forge burner is called a bam burner (3psi). It is very easy to build and comes with some good instructions. We also had started forging with old toyota coil springs witch were made from 5160 and excellent forging material.