Interesting sets of comments here and on the various videos.
"hammer forging" is an old an well understood technique, its basically taking a blacksmith's workflow and scaling it up with hydraulics and mechanical lift assist :-). That said, once the initial shape is good, they chuck it up in a pretty good sized lathe to bring it into final tolerance. This saves a lot of wasted steel since you don't spend tool time cutting away a ton or more of excess material.
Forging also makes the steel harder but a bit more less tough (sometimes a part will be annealed in a large oven after forging to release stresses).
While I'm sure these guys all know a guy who is missing a hand or foot or died while doing this, all of the ironworkers I've met and talked with seemed to really enjoy their work. My guess is that its cathartic pounding some really amazing material into shape. A blacksmith at Plumas Eureka state park remarked that the amazing thing about the blacksmiths of the 1890's when the mine was operating was that their handy work was around for all to see and admire some 125 years later, and it still serves its intended purpose. Not something I can say about software I've written or hardware I've designed.
"hammer forging" is an old an well understood technique, its basically taking a blacksmith's workflow and scaling it up with hydraulics and mechanical lift assist :-). That said, once the initial shape is good, they chuck it up in a pretty good sized lathe to bring it into final tolerance. This saves a lot of wasted steel since you don't spend tool time cutting away a ton or more of excess material.
Forging also makes the steel harder but a bit more less tough (sometimes a part will be annealed in a large oven after forging to release stresses).
While I'm sure these guys all know a guy who is missing a hand or foot or died while doing this, all of the ironworkers I've met and talked with seemed to really enjoy their work. My guess is that its cathartic pounding some really amazing material into shape. A blacksmith at Plumas Eureka state park remarked that the amazing thing about the blacksmiths of the 1890's when the mine was operating was that their handy work was around for all to see and admire some 125 years later, and it still serves its intended purpose. Not something I can say about software I've written or hardware I've designed.