TIL annealing your stock before forging can save you a ton of misery

So I had this piece of 1095 bar stock from McMaster-Carr that I tried to forge cold last Wednesday. Bad idea. It cracked right down the middle on the second hammer hit. I talked to Mike at the local shop in Salem and he said I should have normalized it first. Two hours in the forge at 1450 degrees and slow cool in vermiculite fixed everything. Has anyone else had trouble with 1095 being brittle right out of the box?

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1 Comment

gray_schmidt84h ago

Man that's rough, I feel your pain. I did the same thing with a piece of 1080 last month, bought it from a supplier in Portland and figured I could just start hammering right away. Cracked on the third hit, a nice little hairline straight through the middle. Mike's advice sounds spot on though. I started annealing everything now, even the simple stuff, and it makes a world of difference. That slow cool in vermiculite is key, I tried just letting it sit on the concrete floor once and it still came out too hard.