Jerrod Miller

Sounds like you are in need of a collaboration. Someone needs to send you a blade for you to do fittings on. Then again, when this blade is done you could do a bunch of practice cutting with it!

Heat transfer. You won't be able to use a flame to heat just that area for stamping. Even if you kept the blade in water while heating then it would start spreading to the blade when you pulled it out to hot stamp it. Now, you could slowly cool it with a torch while the blade is still in water to temper, or even 'quasi-normalize', that area for cold stamping. You could also keep from hardening there in the first place if you wanted to.

If you haven't already, you should definitely read all the pinned threads in this sub-forum (Beginner's Place) as well as the Tools and Tool Making sub-forum. There are several great threads about this.

Not exactly what you were looking for, but I live in a metal building and needed cell service, so I went with a WeBoost. I got the bigger one because I wanted/needed coverage in my whole house (and shop). It certainly works. Again, not what you asked for as it isn't exactly cheap, and it is a only wired in that it is a wired signal booster.

I worked at a foundry that made this on occasion. I remember looking into using some for knife components and quickly decided is wasn't a great idea. I can't remember exactly why, but I do remember determining that there were much more user friendly options. It certainly isn't great for casting, and I seem to recall it is not recommended for forging. If you are indeed able to cast it well, it has pretty decent mechanical properties, which is why anybody does use it. Hard to remember exactly though, this was 5 years ago or so.

I'd recommend starting at about 5 psi, then play with it. Every forge is going to be a little (or a lot) different. Watch the flame color at the burner and quantity of dragon's breath. Experimentation time!

Up front sure, but then you have to pay someone to shovel dragon poo for years. And I don't even want to think about the increase in insurance premiums for fire coverage.

That appears to be the Dragon Gate at Harlech House, Dublin. Warning: I haven't seen such a bad website in many years.

This is entirely irrelevant. Only the initial first wave of stress is going to matter, since it is the highest. I can't stress this enough: vibrations DO NOT MATTER. At least as far as blades breaking, they matter for user-friendliness. No it will not. As far as I am aware, there is no evidence to support this at all. In fact there is evidence against it, as noted by AJ Chalifoux.

What Brian said, but also I was meaning that nearly all the brute force goes into the blade, any impact to the guard is going to be pretty secondary (blades bouncing/sliding or a followup cut with much less energy). Kind of like when you're forging a piece down pretty hard on the anvil. You hit the hot piece really hard (relatively speaking) and not the anvil. But when you are done hitting the piece you can let the hammer bounce a bit on the anvil, but you don't swing hard to hit the anvil.

I mean as it rattles around it can damage the blade/tang. Like hitting that area repeatedly with a small hammer, thus eventually deforming it. You almost never parry with the guard directly, but rather with the strong of the blade. The guard should only really come into play in an incidental type of way, after the vast majority of energy has been dissipated by the blade.

Well there you go, definitely pass on this $600 set-up. Honestly, I was sure hoping it would be cheaper to buy the parts, but I didn't expect it to be that much cheaper.

They do (assuming you get hot enough), and that causes a change. And that depends on the type of oil, quantity of it, and atmospheric conditions (e.g. heating with an oxidizing flame vs in an electric oven, etc.).

This is why temper colors are not to be trusted. Too many variables. But you all know that, and also know that I had to say it.

Without taking the time to Google anything, I would wonder how much the controller is worth, and maybe buy the thing for parts to someday make your own bigger oven. It may not be worth it, but who knows? (Answer - anyone who wants to look up the value of the parts.)