A “heat” is the time it takes for a piece to be hammered from glowing hot, to too cold to hit, and it’s put back to the fire.
The fewer heats you can bang a piece out, the better you are as a blacksmith (bragging rights).
The time between heats are the short periods where your workpiece is in the forge, and your steel gets reaches 1500-2000 degrees, ready for forging (or forge welding).
During a collection of these breaks while razors were heating back up, I finished out this wedding band for a friend.
