Well, it's ground down from a flat piece of stock steel, but the only forging, per se, is the heat treatment -- hardens the metal so it can hold an edge; I.e., I didn't actually beat on anything with a hammer, just lots and lots of filing and sanding. Then tossing it in the forge and crossing my fingers that it didn't warp between the heating and quenching. Then more sanding.

And it's my first experience of this sort with metal too, Tirg -- and one wood guy to another -- if you can freehand sand a piece of wood consistently, you can do it with metal too. It just takes more passes, so in a way it's more forgiving.