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c/blacksmithsmargaret99margaret9920d agoProlific Poster

Watching my neighbor fix his fence gate made me think about forge welding differently

So last week I was out in my yard, taking a break from a tricky leaf spring project, and I saw my neighbor across the street struggling with his old wooden gate. The top hinge had pulled out, and the whole thing was sagging. He didn't just screw it back in, he took the time to chisel out a bigger section of the post, glued in a new block of wood, and then re-set the hinge. It hit me that I'd been rushing my forge welds on that spring steel, just trying to get them to stick instead of making sure the surfaces were perfectly clean and prepped. I went back inside, spent an extra twenty minutes grinding everything to a bright finish, and the next weld was smooth as butter. It's funny how seeing a basic repair in a different trade can flip a switch in your head. Anyone else have a moment like that, where something totally unrelated made a blacksmithing technique click?
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2 Comments
sarah_harris
Wait, you were working on a LEAF SPRING?? Lol that's some serious metal, no wonder the welds were fighting you. It's wild how the fix for a wooden gate and a steel spring is basically the same idea, just clean it up right first. I get stuck in that rush mode too, especially when a project's been dragging on. That extra twenty minutes must have felt like a total game changer.
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ninasingh
ninasingh20d ago
Right? I almost threw the grinder at the wall before I finally slowed down.
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