A bit of forging...AKA...hot metal bashing!

I had a bit of time this afternoon, so I fired my  new 2 brick forge and made a couple of things. One is a medieval dining skewer, precursor to the fork as we know it?  I followed this picture to make my copy.

Here is mine. It started as a 4 mm square bar of mild steel. The taper is not so easy to get right as it looks. Also, I should have forged the whole length before I twisted the bar, as I think it would have looked better. Getting the round, tapering tail need to do the handle was relatively easy to do. Getting a nice round shape was not as easy either, and I haven't quite succedeed. But all in all though, I am very pleased with it


What I am trying for is to get the feel for manipulating the metal. It is quite different from working wood, which is within my comfort zone: what you do is to remove material. Same with stock removal. . Forging is more intuitive I believe. you need to learn through your hammer what it feels like, where the metal is moving to, because, with wood, you remove material. With forging hot metal, you displace mass. I made this skewer to get the feel for making a long taper. Also to get the feel of how the hot metal moves when you make a round out of a square.

The other object I made is this wrist band. On the face of it,  a simple shape. But it's not that easy to get that simple shape! I started from a 4mm square mild steel from the local DIY shop I had kicking about. I am quite pleased with this one as well. I'll be wearing it for now!

I am really enjoying forging, and will be making more small objects as practice. Next will probably be a try at a two prong fork.  There is a lot to learn!