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Hello, i am a 17 year old that has been looking into beginning bladesmithing as a hobby after my history teacher told me about it and explained to me a bit of the basics after school one day. and he showed me this forum and told me it is great for questions and such. so far i have studied the steps of bladesmithing, and gotten a small piece of railroad track for an anvil and a hammer, i am looking into building a gas forge with a fire brick and a propane torch, as suggested by my teacher. and i was wondering if it would be ok to use railroad spikes that you can find in the rocks around railroad tracks. my question is that most of them are rusty, some much rustier than others, how would i go about using the spikes to at least start getting some experience in hammering, should i get something like steel wool to take off as much rust as possible before i heat the spikes in the forge? or would it be ok to just forge them with the rust on them? Thank you for your time and effort to read this and help me out if you can, again thank you. -Brandon St.Laurent