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Whats goin on here?


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We have an excess of ball bearings at work, and I pulled one out of the trash to beat up on my anvil. I saw a cool video of a fella making a knife from one, so I thought what the hay. Anyways, I flattened it out, and went to sand the scale off, and noticed some weird pimple things all over it where the sander didn't reach.

Anyone know what it is?

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Don't know for sure, but this may be another example of the overall lack of quality control that this planet is running into.  One of the guys I work with likes to do "squishes" under his chambersburg or 75 ton press out of bearings, gears, etc, and occasionally we have seen strange objects that obviously didn't melt completely when whoever was melting the scrap metal down to make the ingot that was used to make the bearing. . .

or it could have bene over-heated as meintioned above.

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A Ball bearing question ... How big of ball bearings do you have to make a flat piece that thick and that big??  All the ball bearings I have ever seen are tiny balls suitable for shooting out of a slingshot or smaller.

Looks like hard embedded forge scale ...

Ohio Rusty ><>

The Ohio Frontier Forge

Edited by Ohio Rusty
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The cross section is roughly 1 1/16".  I've got a 3 gallon bucket full of this size, and about a half gallon of the ones that are suitable slingshot ammo. About 3/8". The application is for downhole mud motors, and I suspect it may be carbide nodules. I googled photos of the nodules, and they look similar. 

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Now you have me interested in the ball bearing work. I looked around and found the ones I had stored away. I have about a dozen that are 7/8's and one that is one inch. One of my next forging evenings I'll use a 7/8's bearing and hammer on it to see what it becomes. Seems it would only make a small patch or neck knife after forging and stock removal to get a clean face on the blade.  It might make a cute little knife in a small antler handle ......

BTW ... those ball bearings you have you could make decent money on them. Ebay is loaded with your size ball bearings for making a 'monkey fist' defensive tool. Winter in Alasksa seems you would have lots of time on your hands to learn the paracord knotting for these monkey fist whackers ....

Ohio Rusty ><>

The Ohio Frontier Forge

 

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It is highly unlikely they are carbide nodules. It looks like you just got a thick layer of oxide on the your work and your haven't ground it all the way off yet. It looks like you etched it to get the scale off and that left the texture. Ball bearings are usually 52100 thought they don't have to be that grade. Since that is a 1% carbon steel, you need to keep the forging temperature around 2100 F, about 200F cooler than you would for low and medium carbon content steels. 

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​You mean like this?  I've made a few 'whackers' with these bearings and cord, but they never really sell in my circle of pals. I did make a small cutter for doing leather work for a friend. Pardon the crappy handle though. I probably didn't brush the scale off as much as I should have. I'll heat one up again and try to forge it cleaner and see if the pimples come back.

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