Thanks! You should tell him to get off his butt, 'cause this stuff is way cool, and I doubt the price of metal is going to go back down soon. :-)

We did the billet for this using the book's method, which is clamping the metal together and heating it in a mini-forge made for the purpose. Next time I am going to try the method where the metal is clamped together and put into a foil bag and stuck in the kiln, brought up to the correct temperature for diffusion welding the specific metals, keep it there (not sure how long I need to do this) and bring it back down. This should be way easier, assuming things don't accidentally melt. Much better than poking at the billet through a spy hole trying to see if it is hot enough, suddenly realizing that the uneven heat has caused the back to start melting since a drip just came out of the bottom of the forge, freaking out, trying to keep it at heat but not melting, etc. :-P Dad and I also ended up taking turns forging the billet down with a hammer before I got my Christmas present, so a rolling mill is not actually necessary, despite what the book says. It is much better exercise without a rolling mill... ;-)