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Unpopular opinion: stop telling new smiths to start with mild steel, my grandpa's old anvil story proves it
I keep seeing people on here tell every new smith to skip scrap and buy fresh mild steel, and I think that advice is half wrong. Back in 2019 I was learning at a shop in Akron, Ohio, and this old guy named Ray watched me struggle to draw out a piece of brand new 1018 for about an hour. He handed me a rusty leaf spring he pulled out of a pile behind his truck and told me "you learn more from metal that fights you." That leaf spring was 5160, and yeah it was harder to move, but figuring out the heat and the hammer control on it taught me more in two weeks than the clean mild steel did in two months. Now I tell every beginner I meet to grab one piece of mystery scrap and one piece of known mild steel and work both, because the scrap shows you what you are actually doing with your hammer. Anyone else here have a teacher who pushed them toward harder stock instead of away from it?
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hannah92615h ago
you learn more from metal that fights you" is such a real thing and honestly my own learning curve looked like a crime scene for a while because I skipped the hard scrap at first. Working mystery steel teaches you to read color and feel instead of just trusting a chart, and that skill sticks with you way better than a clean bar ever could. Maybe it's just me but I'd take one ugly leaf spring over ten pretty pieces of 1018 any day.
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