Alan Longmire

Since you have addressed most of the issues, and you do seem aware of the potential safety issues, a campfire would be your best bet. Burning it off in the forge will contaminate your forge and any cool surface around it as the vaporized zinc will condense on it. Jim Wilson's entire shop was coated in a thick layer of zinc oxide after he killed himself burning it off pipe fittings. Acid bath cleaning leaves you with a hazardous sludge the local EPA equivalent will be most unhappy with, even though it's relatively benign. Plain galvanizing burns off at a relatively low temperature. Zinc chromate (the gold stuff on grade 8 bolts) takes a little more heat, like a full red. Note that cadmium plate is also gold and will kill you sooner rather than later. Chrome plating will peel off after heating to bright red, but you're left with the nickel and copper underneath. The copper will alloy with the outer surface of the steel. This can lead to cracking and will prevent forge welding. Finally, Doug hit it on the head: most of this stuff, if not all, will be no more than 0.45% carbon at most. If you must use scrap, leaf springs are your best bet for knife-grade carbon content. Coils can be, but not newer ones necessarily. Torsion bars are usually pretty good stuff as well. Jackhammer bits are 1045 with added silicon. Good hammer stock, not blade material. Yes, early medieval knives were often 0.45% carbon if they were not just plain iron, but they didn't hold an edge. As for anything too toxic to forge by its very nature, beryllium copper will kill you in a matter of hours to years depending on your exposure. The dust from sanding or grinding is as dangerous if not more so than the fumes from forging. Leaded machine screw stock (12L14) will release lead vapor when forged, and may crumble to boot. If you can get water-hardening drill rod locally, that's W-1 tool steel. Good stuff. Oil-hardening is O-1 tool steel, also good stuff. Air-hardening drill rod is A-2, a bit advanced for the home shop.

Feel free to use these: I'll even take better pictures of the one I still have! It displays the pattern from your bar #8 on the bottom and bar #10 on top.

That joke was old back when I took chemistry in the 80s... And please don't use big fonts, it screws with my phone for some reason.

The gooey stuff is coal tar. That is part of the process of getting coke, it shows you're halfway there. When I start a forge with coal only, no leftover coke, it takes 20-30 minutes to get a usable fire. Before it's coked up it is just a gummy mess that doesn't heat steel. That's why I try to keep a good bit of coke set aside for the next fire.

Beautiful! For those who don't know, that is just ever so slightly deeper cross-sections on a simple twist. Ypey would be impressed!

What Brian said. It just takes practice. Try it with a 60 grit belt and a piece of wood.

The oxides are a total loss, don't keep them. Borax is for higher temperatures, use a tiny bit of beeswax as flux. It will cover the surface of the melt and help prevent oxidation. Right before you pour, take some stiff paper or a wooden stick and gently wipe the oxides off the surface of the molten pewter. This will give you a clean pour. If the surface of the molten pewter turns gold, purple, or white, you are too hot. Add a drop of wax, then skim the surface. I melt pewter in an iron ladle. I wax the hot iron, then add pewter. As soon as it is fully liquid I skim it and pour. I do this with pure tin, but it works well with lead-tin alloys as well.

You can always freehand the plunges and then use the jig. Or better yet, go full freehand...

Sources for these things: http://www.billbehnkeknives.com/available_items.html https://www.texasknife.com/vcom/product_info.php?products_id=6095 https://www.riversidemachine.net/ecommerce/carbide-file-grind-guide.html https://www.brucebumpknives.com/fileguides/brucebump https://www.knifemaking.com/product-p/fg101.htm Note that last one is not carbide-faced, so be careful using it on a grinder. It would work fine with files, though.

I usually don't do plunges. Look at Gary Mulkey's thread on his hunters, and in post #4 you'll see his carbide-faced file guide: These are so incredibly handy I'm surprised I don't have one. I just grind edge-up and eyeball it.

That particular forge will work even better with charcoal than it does with coal.

Mike, I'm not a fan of choils either for the same reason as Bruno. Jeroen, glad you're gettng a bit done here and there! Looks good from what I can see.

As the deadline passed yesterday with no objections, and Jeremy was granted an extension, the lovely Mrs. Longmire (who is actually the radiant Dr. King!) donned her evening wear, tiara, and decided the boa was a bit much, drew the names! With no further ado, KITH 2018 ends as follows: Alex goes to Zeb. Zeb goes to Charles. Charles goes to Jeremy. Jeremy goes to Wesley. Wesley goes to Alex. Congrats to all involved! PM one another with addresses and so on, and let's look forward to next year!

I have seen that happen when roasting sausages over Jeff Pringle's atomic marshmallow wootz furnace, so yeah, oil, air, wool, and heat.

Just a giant puffball. You could eat it at this stage, if you were so inclined. I wouldn't be, I don't trusty any wild mushrooms! Love the bulldozer for scale, btw.