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QUOTE: Does anyone know if I might have been doing something wrong
QUOTE: Little disgusted, little discouraged,
Yes, you are doing something wrong. If not wrong per se, then at least ill advised for someone trying to learn to forge. As Jim suggested, what you are doing wrong is that you are using an unknown steel. This only complicates things. One of the main reasons we always try to steer beginners away from mystery steel is in your second quote: failure early on often leads to discouragement. I'm glad you still feel confident but how long will that last if you never succeed?
And, never succeeding is a very real possibility with mystery steel. The reason is that some steels simply are not blade steels. If the steel had survived the forging you would have gotten to the point where you quenched it. What if it didn't harden? Would you be discouraged then after you had finally succeeded at forging the blade to shape only to find your time and money (for coal and any other supplies) wasted? Some people certainly would be.
And if you aren't discouraged even then you will still have done a lot of work and spent some money and you still don't have a blade. My Mom used to call this type of behavior being penny wise and dollar foolish. In other words, quit fooling around and buy some blade steel, 1084 or 1080 is pretty cheap and easy to work with and it produces a quality blade.
I don't know what you're paying for coal but you'd likely save a fair amount of money if you built a small propane forge. If you can scavenge a few parts it can be done very cheaply. Once you have that done, you'll spend more time forging your blades and less time trying to keep the coal forge running at the right temp, ergo, you'll learn faster, succeed sooner, and not waste as much time and money on fuel and materials. Yes, start up costs might be a little more initially but knife making is not a cheap hobby so you might as well get used to it.
As for railroad spikes, they are fun to play with and can make nice ornamental knife like objects and some people like to collect them as long as they don't have to pay much for them. Again, buy some good blade steel and stop wasting your time and money....
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