Alan Longmire

I smell smoke, if that's any help...

If you've lined it with castable you don't need anything on top, unless you want to add an IR reflective coating like ITC-100 or Plistix. These can get you an extra hundred degrees or so, but are not usually necessary.

WooHoo! Looks great!

I like the way that's heading.

Lovely as always, Cal!

Tell your wife that you, sir, just won the awesomeness award for the week with that build.

You alright, Martin?

And he got it from Tai Goo, who in turn got it from some tribe in the Phillipines, who got it from somewhere in Indonesia/Maylaysia and so on... . A good idea is always good.

Good work!

I'd be annoyed. While it is theoretically possible to convert the pyrite to hematite or magnetite, you're still gonna have enough sulfur that any iron produced will be hot short. And there's that nasty sulfuric acid problem when you roast it...

I thought this looked like you'd been watching Tod's Workshop. He's one of the best guys you can watch for this stuff.

Well done! You captured the look.

Get the eye white hot and sparking, and drift it at that heat. It probably won't reweld, but it will close the crack.

Yes, but you really don't want to play with D2, S7, or A2 without a heat treat kiln. Air-hardening steels are great fun to forge since they harden as you're forging them. And a bucket of vermiculite is of no use with them.

I'm assuming you mean 3mm, 3cm is 1.2 inches. And 3mm is thick enough for small knives, but D2 is not for the faint of heart. Somewhere around here there was a guy from Israel asking about heat treating it recently. Find that thread and see what you think.