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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rune" data-source="post: 5862926" data-attributes="member: 67">I've done a little work on my father's forge, but my knowledge and skill are nowhere near as extensive as his.  Even so, I know a few things.First of all, you're not really going to lose any metal during the process (except that which you intentionally remove), so your sword or armor piece is going to be the same weight as the metal you use for it.You're going to need a good long-lasting fuel.  Coal is not uncommon, even in the fantasy genre (the dwarves in The Hobbit had been mining it before Gandalf appeared with Thorin's map).You're going to need to get that fire really hot.  Nowadays, you can set up a motorized fan to help the process along, but you're going to need a bellows (the bigger, the better) in pre-motorized times.  Unless, of course, you've got magical means.Basically, you'll be doing two things to the metal:  Shaping and welding.  Shaping is done by getting the metal white hot and beating it against an anvil with a hammer.  Again and again.  Depending on the shape you're going for, you're going to use a different part of the anvil (there is a reason they're shaped the way they are).Welding is the process of adding a piece of metal to another.  This is usually going to be finer work and may require a smaller hammer, but is a very similar process to the shaping; that is, heat metal and hammer.  During this process, while your metal is still white-hot, you're going to want to sprinkle on something like borax as flux, to make sure you aren't welding in any impurities (which would weaken the weld).Then, of course, you'll want to temper the piece and, if it is a blade, grind an edge onto it.Edit -- For masterwork blades, one thing you may do is forge-weld the blade over and over again.  Using this process, you will be folding the metal for the blade over and welding it together (as described above).  Then repeating.  A lot.  Each fold doubles the layers in the blade, providing both strength and beauty.  Afterward, you would etch the blade with an acid wash (of some kind) to help bring out the patterns.  Obviously, this is time-consuming, but the results are remarkably striking.</blockquote>

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