Hey, don't be so hard on yourself that is our JOB!! No, seriously you learned something and so did we so it is a win-win! Thanks for your great videos!
Ah come on Timothy... No one forges a sledge in one heat! It was still amazing job, even if it's not perfectly symmetrical. 😉 And it will work anyway. Best wishes to you!
The fact that you can make and mold something in such a short time that is useful is still amazing. Perfection takes time and in a sense it was perfect for what you were trying. Sure, if you practice doing it over and over you’ll get rhythm, but sense this was a novelty challenge I’d say wasn’t a fail, but win. You’re having to do a lot of steps in such a short timeframe. Not restricted by giving yourself 5 minutes, but rather your heat dissipation is the clock that gives the countdown.
Hey don’t worry about it at all!! Idk about others, but I know nothing about blacksmithing, and I just love watching you create these things. And really, seeing something go “wrong” is interesting too, because I learn something I never knew before. If we only get to see perfect products, we can appreciate the art but learn nothing of the skills. I’m a carpenter and I’m pretty ocd with things I build in terms of symmetry etc too, so I know how you feel, but I still think it came out way better than you seem to feel it did. You didn’t let us down, you just showed us another side of a craft we’d probably never get to learn about otherwise. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼👌🏼
Tim, I don’t ever write comments… ever. But I’ve watched a little bit of your stuff now. Ps your Blackhawk axes are amazing. Your attention to detail and how distraught this failure made you shows your desire to create lasting, working, pieces of art. That is huge in a throw away society. I may never buy a super nice axe, but if I do, it will be from you. Keep up the work man!
I did woodshop instead of metalworking in HS and this video kinda gave me a moment where I could clearly see what I would be like if I chose metalworking instead. instead of sanding the projects to absolute perfect smoothness. I would be shining the metal projects till they are as reflective as possible each time.
Hey man. I just want to say thanks man. You are showing your great and not so great. Its not something many youtubers do. Your videos are making me want to do some blacksmithing. Ive started building a burner, but in Australia, we dont have many means of getting the right stuff. But like you, ill keep going. Thanks man.
The failures are the lessons my friend! We learn from our from our own failures, but we learn from each other's as well. Never apologize for a video we can LEARN from!!! Thank you for posting this video and keep hammering!
Kept waiting for Timothy to just say screw it and throw the hammer over the should, get another piece of steel and make it happen. Never give up man its never a failure unless you quit. Its a teaching moment always learning from whatever we do, take that and come back twice as strong and motivated. Goes for anything in life. Weather you think you can or can't your right.
Not as much a fail as a learning opportunity. You've discovered what's unsatisfactory and what you can improve on for the next attempt. Keep practicing, and keep learning. Re-framing failure as learning opportunity is the best approach to growing your skills (my teacher / academic advisor side just came out).
You know we are our own worst critic. Remember it was only one heat. As you said you could have easily thrown it back in the forge and fixed it with a second heat. I think your pretty damn talented with that power hammer. Keep up the good work. I enjoy your video's
Hey don't be to hard on yourself I would say the only way we learn is sometimes making mistakes it's what drives us to make it easier and better down the road, keep head up high, you'll get it next. Being that I'd like to get into blacksmithing just a little bit I find that anything I can pick up is always valuable.
Sometimes you win, and sometimes you loose.. Thats life..... If someone wins everytime, They either cheat, or is too perfect to be interresting anyway.. Keep up the great work..
So I’m just seeing this video and I know it’s a year old but I have to say this. There will be failure in everything you do that is a fact of life. I commend you for showing your mistakes and triumphs. It’s refreshing to see when other channels just show when everything goes perfect. Reality is what we want. Hopefully you will do more like this in the future.
Dude, that was awesome. Sure know what it's like to be perfectionist and produce something less than acceptable from our own critical point of view. Not as much to be learned from success compared to failures. I love that you're being true to yourself and posted it the way it is. Keep up the awesome work buddy!
Don’t be so hard on yourself mate, truth is your one heat hammer is better than 80% of blacksmiths can do in an entire day. Your channel is very entertaining and educational, I haven’t been a subscriber for too long, only a couple months, but I can safely say your my favorite blacksmithing channel. Better than Alec steel, black bear, etc etc. you make some amazing products and show me so many amazing techniques, all whilst maintaining a cool calm and confident and professional demeanor. It might not be a perfectly symmetrical hammer, but it’s definitely still useable and you did it one heat. Keep up the great work with the channel mate, and maybe in the future you’ll nail that one heat hammer. In the meantime I’ll continue to watch and eagerly await your content from over here in Australia. Keep it up Tim.
You did a great job, on the mild steel one you made the hole last if I remember correctly... If It take 5 minutes to forge but half a day to set up, might as well make 5-6 in a run...you'd sell them fast, Cheers you are a great smith with a purpose and cool tools. Practice makes perfect, and " mistakes" equal 100 practice...
I don’t think you failed at all dude. It might have not been to your satisfaction but, You still made a usable hammer head in one heat. And that’s a win to me.
Binge watching all the videos of the channel...and really loving the contents...the one heat challenges are insane... And really no need to feel bad a bit. And really I didn't feel a time waste in any of the videos yet. More like all successful videos seems more staged and fake and things like that. And since we all are learning, it's better to know what all are bad practices....thus failure vids are so much informative. ♥️♥️😊
Hey much like most have said don’t be so hard on yourself. If you learned from the experience then it wasn’t a failure! Simple put ...... practice and you will get there! And who knows.....you may be the next Brent Bailey!
I enjoyed the video. On your mystery metal, perhaps you can get various known samples and compare the spark patterns. As you have a bunch of the stuff, it would serve you well to know what you have.
As a perfectionist myself this video struck a raw nerve and brought a few tears to my aging face. Brother, I can honest to our Heavenly Father YAH say this is by far the best video of yours I have ever seen, and I've been on a rampage to see most of them. It was the most authentic and pure example of true strength I've come across in many a year, and in many more a man all around the world; to expose oneself to the world and admit that your efforts were not up to your own standards. The standards are not what was important to me, at all, and likely not many others watching but I know that for you they were, as you so bravely shared. Never lose touch with this side of yourself, this raw, honest and pure side, for this world of posers will likely try forge it out of you. (pun intended) I love watching your content because my late father was a craftsman and inventor and I see some of that creative spark in you brother and it is beautiful to behold; something from the old world perhaps. You are uniquely you, flaws and all, and that is what makes you so easy to watch. Nothing's fake in you, contrary to this current upside down world of fake boobs, fake lips, fake money, fake politicians and leaders, and now fake realities. I commend you brother and thank you for this video and all your sincere work. May YAH Most High protect you and your family always and bless you and keep you.
This is a crazy challenge so I think you did a great job. Stop being so hard on yourself. Seriously everyone fails just post it and don't worry about it. Progress is full of failures.
Nah man, don't be shy to show your failures, we almost always learn more from trial and error than success. This video was still helpful, and maybe made more so, despite the not-quite-up-to-scratch-ness of the finished project.
TimI just came across your channel. I have only seen a few vid's bit it was enough to get me to sign on. As others have said you are being way to hard on yourself with this one heat hammer. I personally wouldn't call it a fail! It a usable hammer and you know what you have to do next time to make it a pretty hammer too. If you learn from your doings then it can only a considered a win. I look forward to seeing more of your vid's.Take to easy manTim
Challenges you can only do with large tools (and skill).. few challenges come out perfect. That can be fixed if you add another heat. And honestly I like channels that show they fail on occasion.
Nice try dude! Enjoyed your video. I think you could have keep some of the heat in the block if you took the hammer off of the bottom die between heats. Nit sure if I have could do it but I might have ago! Off to check out your axe video now. I'm mega poo at axes lol
Just found you. Subscribed. Yea you were losing heat fast. But hey, you did it. That’s why we have grinders. You, like the rest of us, always push. If you were making the hammer for a friend, you wouldn’t worry about number of heats. You challenged your biggest critic. Yourself. That is the way is should be. Therefore, you actually won.
The only way this could be a fail is if you didn't learn. You're pushing your self in new areas. You won't have a 100% success rate, and that's good. It means you still have things to learn and explore, so you're not bored. It's also encouraging to see that those at the top of their craft don't succeed every time. It makes the mistakes for the rest of us seem less abnormal. I really appreciate you posting this. I don't see this and think you failed. I see this and already know you have a future success.
Don’t beat yourself up so much mate. It was a trial at one heat. You still achieved a perfectly functional hammer in that one heat. Was it to your standard? No, but the next one will....and mate, I’m happy to watch “fails” because I learn along with you. Keep up the good work and happy pounding......
AS the steel was going dull I was starting to think you wouldn't get chamfers on it at all, so the fact you ended up with chamfers at all is already a win, IMO
This is not a fail, you produce a functioning tool, the extra material on one side could be rounded or shaped if you need to make a hammer for a specific task! I would not mind adding it to my collection!
The challenge was to forge a sledge hammer head in one heat. That's exactly what you did. I'd call it a success. Put a handle on that sucker. I'd proudly swing that thing any day of the week. It's rustic, unique, like none other.
You're good! My first ever cold cut chisel was a huge failure. I was like yeah, it's pattern welded, chisel shaped and awesome! Third hit and it went bink straight into 72 pieces. You had to laugh :)
Could we see you do a "blacksmith sledge" as I've heard them called by Australian industrial smiths. Forward weighted with a cross peen on the other end
Not so bad... with today’s age of social media and getting high doses of other craftspeoples incredible work it’s easy to get down on our selves for not always measuring up. Sometimes, after a big screw up, or even just scrolling through my IG, I wonder “why the hell do I even bother”, and downward spiral. But when I’m just working, focusing on what’s in front of me me I realize, it’s about me and the natural world, and my connection to it, and how I want to share that with the buyer. The more I make it about my spiritual connection, and less about how a finished product compares to other work, the healthier I am. It’s a constant battle though... average people have no idea how hard this sort of work is on so many levels.
You did good mate, I was wondering with the champher I was thinking has he got a chalk mark on the bottom of the power hammer to see how far to put the billet in.??? You'll get it next time.
Nice video, nice music. You really look disappointed. It was a big challenge but you did good, room for improvement. It will make the next one that is better even sweeter. Thanks for sharing, Thijs
Put it on the wall of growth so you can look at it and know you are going forward next time you try,and laugh about it in the mean time,only dwarves and Thor can forge a one heater!
Ok, I'm going to assume you arent joking, and with that here is my input, for what its worth. The only part of this project that I could see might be a little disappointing is how you have your grasp on. Why you started blacksmithing in the first place. Was it your goal when you started to one day be able to crank out cookie cutter tools as fast ad ypu could? I always got the impression that you did this because it enabled you to take a raw, pretty much useless hunk of steel and create something that would be useful for 100s of years. To use you imagination to look at a chunk of steel and be able to use your skilled to first heat it then mold it, using your hammer or power tools to draw out of it the image that only existed in your mind. I have been watching your channel for quite awhile now, and eventhough I'm mostly into bladesmithing, I keep watching because its kind of cool eatching a grown man get excited as you do over being able to continuely stretch your boundaries, and sometimes make stuff that maybe you werent even sure you could. I mean trying to forge a hammer in one heat is, I thought just a fun way just to see how much you could get done, trying to work that fast. Ok so to basically sum up my rambling 2 things popped into my head after seeing you honestly that upset. 1.) I think one of the reasons I watch you and what make you so fun to watch is, you always seem willing to push your boundaries to do the best quality work you could do, which included a lot of times, not excepting some minor flaws most would just ignore, even when it meant reheating 1 more time to make sure it was the best you could do. 2.) I was a little annoyed and I guess insulted that you dont realize how good your work is, I would kill to have you skill as a blacksmith, and you ability to visualize the final product you end up with. The giant chain mail??? I couldnt even grasp the concept of how you were going to make that. Ok, rant over, I love your channel and I hope you continue to make more videos, sorry if this came across a little harsh, but I dont think any of your subscribers think that unever chanfers on a hammer you are trying to make that fast reflects on your talent or our. Enjoyment of watching your videos.
Try not to look at a failure as a negative. Failing is good (as long as it isn't all the time) as it gives you things to improve on. If you're guaranteed to complete the task, where's the challenge? If you're wanting to grow, you set your sights on something that's out of your normal ability, you then have to try. If you get it, great!! Aim higher next time! If you don't achive your goal, it shows you where you can improve and grow. You were able to look at that hammer and list the imperfections, those are all things you can now work on. You do that by practicing and as you do that, you improve, your forging skills improve and so does your product. If you never take the time to try and to fail, you will never grow....... how do you think Liam Hoffman makes those awesome axes?!?!? He pushed himself A LOT and he failed a lot of the time, but he learnt from every failure. Put that hammer somewhere you can see it every time you forge and go through the bits you need to improve on. You'll soon be turning out hammers faster and cleaner then EVER!! 👍👍👍👍👍👍
No need to beat yourself up over it. I see a sledgehammer head at the end. After grinding the ends and making it presentable, it will still be a useable tool. Even the most experienced artists have some kind of error in their work. No one is 100% perfect. I bet if you forged 10 sledge hammers, each one would be a little different. Unlike a press forged tool.
Dude honest feedback, get a grip!! Ok so "a heat hammer" fun project ABSOLUTELY!! Is it a realistic measure of your skill ABSOLUTELY NOT! Do you know.any blacksmith that would seriously attempt to make a sellable product or even a self tool to be used regularly, in one heat? I took about 10 minutes and added up all the smiths i know that would do it or even reasonable could do it. I came up with 0!!! Yeah a big capital Z little ero! Alec Steele, iI think youve heard of him has made a few hammers in his life, he used to take orders of small sledge hammers, one. Order I think he ended up with like over 200 hammers to do, so he videoed the day he went at the actual forging part. Not counting the quenching heat, I think it took him 3 heats per hammer, my personal opinion is he is gotta be top 3 in the world at forging hammers. Seriously say you.do it again in a month, and you do a good enough job that you consider it a "pass" maybe even almost perfect, do you really think you will ever be able to produce the best hammer you can in one heat? No makers mark on it, the handle hole isnt perfect because u will never have time to put a.drift far enough in so you can perfect the sides with it in. I think you take for granted how talented an artist you are, you have a phenominal eye and you seem to get so genuinely captured by the possibilities yo can do with a few tools and a chunck of steel. I could practice everyday for the next 20 yrs and I still wouldnt be able to do what you do, partly because my imagination would never think of, hey lets build a giant freakin chain mail set. I guess im alittle confussed about what your priorities are do you want to see if ypu can make something exceptable in one heat or do you want to see how efficient ly you can produce your best work. I personally think that would be a lot more entertaining video to watch. Hey, if any of they "failures" are just too much to look at I would be more than willing to take them so you dont have to be tortured by looking at them all the time..😁😁😁😁. You do great work keep having fun and make more videos!
