Do not try and melt down scrap. You'll come out with some fucked-up sort of iron. Plus it's all so much harder to do than forging is. I acquire my steal from scrap yards I look for specific car components leaf springs strut coils axle shafts or good basic Steel stock like flat bar steel rods Square stock. My father also works in a factory and brings me bearings large and small and those are really really good steel it's a bit tedious to deal with in some aspects so without reading up on it. But you can probably find a steel supplier locally steel will be the cheapest component of blacksmithing. The most expensive component is actually going to be abrasives, so belts for Sanders stones for your bench grinder wire wheels and blades for grinders after that it's your fuel supply charcoal coal or propane depending on whether you buy or build your Forge and after your most expensive cost is going to be new tools and toys. If you are making knives most professional knife makers will tell you don't even bother with scrap steel you never know what it is even if you're very sure it could still be something else and it's cheaper in the long run just to go buy brand new Steel stock. Me I want to be an old-school blacksmith and come up against problems and challenge myself and deal with failure I don't want to play it safe I want an experience I'm not in it to make knives for money yet I mean it to have fun and bang on stupid bullshit in my garage. Really good place to go for information is bladeforums.com.
[–] cmor88 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I believe there are a couple of steel suppliers in my area, but I don't know their prices. The is also a recycling facility locally that buys and sells stock. I hadn't considered scrap yards for car parts.
[–] TheKobold [S] ago
Scrap yards are also a good place to find Anvil shaped objects two. I wish I had gotten it but I saw a three inch thick piece of Steel the last time I was at the scrap yard that was like two or three square feet it would have been a great anvil.