[Fionnbharr (finn:-)]

Try welding something other than AS36 hot rolled 1/2 square... A LOT of what we are getting is polluted remelt, and is Hard and sometimes impossible to weld unless your welding technic is just perfect. I had a boy who was working with me some and he could make chain link welds all day long (I think he was using cold rolled 3/8 round, but it might have be HR??), but could not get a simple faggot weld in 1/2" square. The mill scale on HR can give you problems too, ifn you don't take it off first. If you were sticking to something else in the fire, then it is more likely something wrong with you your material or how you are handling it would be my guess...

In our local group we have noticed and been talking about how hard it is to get the new remelt steel to forge weld one guy was guessing copper contamination as the culprit. Personally I have noticed that some of the AS36 seems to be hot short and will crumble because of excessive grain growth, especially on a narrow neck after you stop working that area. Modern materials have different characteristic than old wrought iron or even old steel. You need to modify your technics and your designs to avoid the weaknesses and play to the strengths of the materials you use. Good modern steel is very homogenious, and can be moved fast under the hammer. Old wrought iron isn't homgenious at all, and unless it is a Very fine grade of wrought it has a tendency to split if you push it too hard and too fast, but it forge welds beautifully, something that isn't true of mild steel;-) It is very interesting to note that some of the things from the past that we are so impressed with in our modern age were done simply to overcome the limits of the materials at hand, and to take advantage of some of the benifits of the material. Pattern welding in Europe, and Japanese laminated blades are prime examples... Of course forge welding was everywhere in the past... Sorry about the digression into a history lesson, I have been working in my head on some material for a demo at an up coming conference... ;-)