The problems with using heat to form metals like iron are covered in other answers.
You might instead consider sidestepping the use of heat as your method of metal forming. If your race is able to create (or find) strong acids and also generate electricity they may use electroplating to create different metal shapes without heat. Electroplating uses acid to dissolve metals and then uses electricity to cause the dissolved metal to form on the surface of an electrode in the acid. The shape of the electrode determines the shape of the plating metal, so a breastplate shaped electrode would form a breastplate shaped metal object.
The acid could be found from the ants and beetles which use strong formic acid as an attack, so hunting for natural acid (if they can't manufacture it) could be exciting.
Electricity would require the ability to create copper (or silver) wires, but these metals could be formed with little or no heat.