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I Forge Iron

Tim S.

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  1. Keep in mind that testing round items can often lead to false readings if you aren't very careful. If you are not already familiar with them you might want to look up the correction factors for round work.
  2. Don't overlook your options on campus- smithing facilities may be present in the Art or design departments.
  3. I definitely side with the bad habit group. It is wasted motion and impacting hardened steel against hardened steel is never a great idea. I do believe it is a pause for thinking for many people but my early training was that all the thinking work should be done before you get to the anvil. I know that is a bit optimistic but it is a worthwhile goal. It goes along with the mindset that says we should use the minimum number of blows, minimum number of steps, and minimum number of heats to get a job done.
  4. One of my early mentors said "Any fool can make one of something- making two alike is the trick." There is a great deal of truth in this statement. It gets at the idea that you have to learn to be consistent in your workmanship. Beyond that though it gets into how you think and plan work, how you utilize your equipment, and your ability to focus on the important details. Having done both industrial and decorative smithing I can say this is a big challenge in each arena. Ultimately, learning how to plan a job and any needed tooling is tougher than learning how to do the job. Then, if you are doing this for a living, learning how to plan the work and estimate a realistic amount of time to execute it is critical. If you can’t do that effectively then you can’t cost your work properly. These are skills that come through trial and error, talking to those with experience, and from developing an methodical approach to your work. I was blessed to work with two fine men that were willing to take the time to teach. If you find somebody like that make sure to spend your time with them well- watch closely and listen with all your might
  5. Very interesting. I have never seen a commercially made hammer like that. In the shop I used to work in we had a shop made version using the same sort of IR hammer. It had been built for light swaging, sharpening star drills, etc. IR made a line of rockdrill sharpeners that were very impressive machines.
  6. The number of burners is not the whole story. To heat big stuff in a slot forge you want to have thermal mass- i.e. refractory cement/brick. When I did big work out of slot forges we would often come in early to start the forges and get them hot- and I mean HOT before putting work in. Then the next key was to keep them sealed up as well as possible, Use firebricks or ceramic fiber blankets to keep the heat in.
  7. If you can afford it -give it a try. I never feel bad about money spent on good tools.
  8. I almost replied yesterday to the question about trade secrets. This sort of ties back into that topic. The general answer is the math works. In the days when I had to make a lot of one off stuff in industry, I always started with the math. Then I planned out accordingly but always doing my best to leave myself a way out or a plan B. Sometimes that just isn't possible. These were the times when I got nervous. The worst was when it was some expensive material that the customer had supplied… Most of what has been said above is true. The efficiency with which you can reach the finished size will effect the degree to which you can expect to see losses along the way and therefore will need to add in a little material. In other words if you have a 500lb hammer and can shape the item in two heats, it will be much more exacting than if you take 5 heats in a 50lb hammer. This is where knowing your equipment is key. In the shop where I used to work there were two blacksmith from different parts of Germany that didn’t get along. One had a formal apprenticeship and one had learned along the way just by doing. One day the guy with the informal training asked the other how to calculate the volume of a crane hook. The only answer he got was “You are a blacksmith, you should know that.” We worked to the numbers as much as possible because test pieces took time and money. This was a big part of what I enjoyed in that job. Being able to plan a job from a blueprint to a finished part and make it all come out in tolerance gives a feeling of real accomplishment.
  9. I am a big fan of technical colleges too. However, I wouldn't rule out the regular college route if you can do it. You mentioned Colorado School of Mines. That is a renowned school for metallurgy. If that is an option it is worth considering strongly. Welding and machining are great occupations but in the long run you will be likely to have more opportunities and a greater ability to determine your own path with a four year degree. I started out in the same spot you are in many years ago. I almost took an apprenticeship but finally chose to go to college. I graduated with a degree in art but also a fair amount of math, science, and engineering under my belt. I went to work as an industrial blacksmith. Then I ran my own shop for several years. Eventually, I decided I did not want to continue with smithing as my full time career. I was lucky enough to be able to complete a materials science program, I now work as a quality guy- basically a plant metallurgist. I still have a lot of fun with metal but it is in a different capacity. The opportunity for me to shift gears like that really was in large part due to having the initial degree.
  10. Jaz, I'll take a stab at this one as best I can. If you have a eutectoid composition the transition to austenite is instantaneous once the material has crossed the A1. In practice nobody is going to assume instantaneous transformation, but this is the real implication of the eutectoid composition. Yes, as a rule most people are striving for a fully martensitic transformation. In practice you rarely get it. The size at which you get it will take you into concepts like the DI value, etc. In practice in the blacksmith world, you will quench for hardening and have to work out tempering experimentally for your application. Your as hardened structure is very unlikely to ever be fully martensitic, but that does not mean there is any failure in your process. Tim
  11. Based on the data I have it looks like you should get an air cooled hardness around BH 300 in a 20 mm section. The low yield is difficult to understand. I wonder if you have a retained austenite issue? Have you done any micrographs to look at your grain structure? Does you oil quench have any agitation/circulation?
  12. That's a litle vague- they may be looking for SBQ (Special bar Quality).
  13. To me the key question is how many are you making at a time. That cross section could be bent hot (Torch) around a simple jig. with a little torch practice you should be able to form those without hammering back to flat. However, this is a slow process. You could do it in the HF too but it will need some tooling to make a good job of it. A big DiAcro could do or they could even be bump formed in a ram bender with some basic tooling. If you have enough, somebody with a small angle roll could set up and run those out pretty easily.
  14. I used to work in an industrial blacksmith shop. I remeber one of the "Old timers" there telling me this very question caused one of the more heated debates ever had at the Wisconsin Blacksmiths and Welders Association. To my knowledge no consensus was found.
  15. It is possible that the material is wrong but I wouldn't rule out decarb just yet. Try taking a file to a hardened piece. See if the hardness increases as you go into the part. IF so = decarb,
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