Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals in order to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term, it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scale: from huge ships, buildings, and bridges, down to precise engine parts and delicate jewelry.
Turning a bar of metal on a lathe.
Le Marteleur by Constantin Meunier (1886)
A turret lathe operator machining parts for transport planes at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas, USA in the 1940s.
A combination square used for transferring designs.
Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compressive forces. The blows are delivered with a hammer or a die. Forging is often classified according to the temperature at which it is performed: cold forging, warm forging, or hot forging. For the latter two, the metal is heated, usually in a forge. Forged parts can range in weight from less than a kilogram to hundreds of metric tons. Forging has been done by smiths for millennia; the traditional products were kitchenware, hardware, hand tools, edged weapons, cymbals, and jewellery.
Hot metal ingot being loaded into a hammer forge
A billet in an open-die forging press
A cross-section of a forged connecting rod that has been etched to show the grain flow
Open-die drop forging (with two dies) of an ingot to be further processed into a wheel