With this issue, we continue the circle of life for FORGE magazine. For those of us who have been around since 2006, you are aware that FORGE started from Industrial Heating (IH). IH always has contained forming stories, including the last 15 years of FORGE. One of IH’s editorial categories has continued to be Melting/Forming/Joining.

FORGE magazine expanded the forming category into a publication, which began in late 2006. At that time, the forging market was growing, and it was a good symbiotic relationship with the new FORGE magazine. We enjoyed our time with a publication dedicated to this market, but times change.

I guess change is the one thing we can all count on. The forging industry has seen a lot of change over the past several years. If nothing else, my 40 years in the steel industry has seen many market ups and downs. It’s the nature of the industry.

Needless to say, the publication industry has also changed significantly in the past 15 years. Print publications are becoming a thing of the past, and we are competing with various web-based news sources. Because of this and because most of our advertisers are investing more online, FORGE magazine has to adapt as well.

Let’s not forget the impact that the pandemic has had on all businesses. These factors have resulted in the perfect storm, causing us to rethink the business model for FORGE.

The circle of life to which I previously referred has resulted in FORGE being included with Industrial Heating moving forward. We found that 85% of FORGE readers were already receiving IH. In response to you, our readers, this is also an attempt to reduce emails by streamlining forging-related content with trusted Industrial Heating content.

This is our first combined issue, and we welcome FORGE-exclusive readers to these pages. You will find FORGE content identified throughout the issue, including columns, articles, news, products and more.

Dean Peters, FORGE’s editor, has more to say in his editorial, and I will leave that to him. Suffice to say that if you are new to Industrial Heating, welcome! We believe you will find most of our content relevant to the forging industry, but look for a FORGE label to find FORGE-specific content.

Reed Miller

Technical Editor

412-225-9472

reed@industrialheating.com