Fun math
I know this is starvation mod and I love it to death, and I'm having an amazing time. But let's look at the altered cost of forged steel. A stack of forged steel costs 37,500 iron at 75 per piece. That's 6300 raw iron which takes over 500 minutes to forge in without splitting it up.
So let's say you want to make 150 forged steel spikes, it costs 12000 iron to make them and upgrade them to the second level, and 112,500 in iron for the 1500 forged steel. That's almost 21 stacks of 1200 raw iron at 6000 per stack. And remember that it takes a 100 mins per stack to forge it in. I'm also not looking at the coal or the clay required. And the that it's 33% cheaper to turn it into scrap steel then forge it back in and use the scrap steel to make forged steel.