A guy at the swap meet in Tulsa told me my forge weld looked like cold cat shit and he was right
I was at the Tulsa swap meet back in March selling a couple of railroad spike knives when an old dude in a welders cap picked one up and just stared at the weld line for a solid minute. He finally said "son that seam is cold as cat shit, you can see the lap right there where you didn't bring it up to temp." I wanted to argue but I got my jeweler's loupe out of the truck and sure enough there was a visible lap running the whole length of the billet. Been forging 6 years and nobody at any hammer-in ever told me that straight before. Now I flux, bring it to a real lemon yellow, and let it soak way longer than my gut says. How do you all check your welds before you call a billet done?