Metallurgy

Hi folks, I've just ordered 2kg of natural graphite powder (and am being sent a freebie sample of micronised graphite from another supplier) so I'm going to experiment mixing it with a variety of waxes and paints for internal and external finishes. Out of curiosity, what you mix your graphite with and in what proportions? Cheers

Does any one know what the plating metal for generic locking pliers is . I am preparing to modify a set to use as an anvil hold down jig. I suspect that the plating is nickel but have heard opinions that chrome may be what is used. Since I plan to do a bit of welding to complete this chore I would like to have a definitive answer before starting.

This is a question for a blacksmith/chemist. When I forge mild steel a lot of scale piles up around the anvil. Is this scale chemically similar to magnetite (Fe2 3O4). I meed a couple of ounces of powdered magnetite for some hand made electrical inductors. Powdered magnetite is available commercially but I only need a couple of ounces and I have a lifetime's worth of scale around the anvil. Thanks

I've been messing around on line a bit too much again, and ran across a different recipe for bluing than I've messed with previously. Consisted of hot bluing using a mix of one gallon water to 5 lbs lye, and 2.5 lbs of nitrates, preferably sodium. Anybody tried this before I even think of digging out fun chemicals like caustics and nitrate salts? (Seems a little more risky than acid bluing I've tried.) Definitely not going with ammonium nitrate as I enjoy breathing oxygen to ammonia.

I placed the plate on plastic, covered it with paper towels and gently wetted the towels with muriatic acid and covered it with more plastic. The plate was clean in 15 minutes. Appropriate PPE, good ventilation and a very small amount of acid used and then neutralized with backing soda. Mods: didn't know were to put this........ We put in Alchemy, Formulas, Fluxes, etc for you.

Is there some sort of "pickle" or other treatment which will remove scale from steel and leave it a silver/grey color? Almost 50 years ago I worked in the Alloy Bar Mill of US Steel's South Works in Chicago and I recall lowering bundles of steel rods into an acid bath (HCl IIRC) to remove the scale after they came out of the rolling mill and cooled. I would like to make silvery iron roses but, of course, I can't remove all the scale with a wire wheel after the rose is completed.

I have searched and didn't really find much, but was wondering if any of you use rust converters to finish your pieces. From what I have read they seem to be a good durable finish which can be used as is, or some are ready to paint over, no priming needed.

I am posting this in reguard to a topic in the chat room last nght where I was attempting to explain how many things in heat treating were not fully understood until more recient times, like carbon factoring into the hardening process. In times past, we proceeded to turn iron into steel by route, mearly following what we were taught by our masters, not becasuse of any realy understanding about carbon/iron interactions or phase changes. The following is taken from http://discovery.yukozimo.com In 1722, a scientist named Réaumur, showed how to make steel by combining iron and carbon. Later Antoine Lavoisier would be labled the official “discoverer” of carbon since…

I have been making a decorative knife out of 1018 cold roll steel. Because my mill is currently unusable, I cannot make the crossbar out of steel (the design is too complicated for other tools). I decided that casting it out of aluminium would be the next best option. However, steel and aluminium together create a risk of galvanic corrosion. After some research, it seems the best solution would be to use aluminium 2017, 2024, or 2117, since it is very close to 1018 on the galvanic series. I also plan to insulate the two metals with rubber. My question: Will this stop the corrosion?

So here's my problem: within 2-3 weeks of finishing things like hooks and bottle openers with wax I'm starting to see a light "dust" of rust on various places of the piece. I am fairly new to this whole thing but thought it would take longer to see rust type stuff. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or just placed to much trust in my wax. Here's what I've been doing... forge the thing, cool, wire brush with a wire wheel to a bright finish (no scale or rust left), heat the piece with an oven, propane torch or the coal forge, apply wax (the bees/turpentine/boiled linseed oil), let cool to warm and apply a second coat. Seems to be kind of a standard thing but I di…

I happened on some large roller bearings and am trying to figure out their composition. Their physical dimensions are ~1.425 D X 2.9" height, with a slight 0.050 taper. Using the tools available I calculated their density was 7.45 g/cubic centimeter. They showed some attraction to a magnet. Picture is attached. I looked up steel density and it is usually near 7.8 for a carbon steel. Chromium is less dense however and the density I determined suggests these bearings may be stainless steel; but I thought they would not be magnetic. Further reading showed that while only austenitic SS is non-magnetic, even it can become magnetic from cold working. An old bearing coul…

Hello all, I was reading the forum the other day and stumbled onto a thread talking about removing rust from tools. This thread was specifically talking about a small anvil. Various methods were discussed and I mentioned electrolysis for rust removal. I have personally used this method many times and it works great. It will also take off old paint and other impurities from the surface down to bare metal. There are many good links on YouTube that demonstrates what to do. One of my favorite designs is in this link. Hope this helps someone some time. Thanks all for reading.

I am in the middle of offering a 6 day toolsmithing class. One student is a Santa Fe talented silversmith, Liz Wallace, and she had a texturing hammer head with tiny squares indented in contiguous, concentric circles on the round face. Some of the indentations were worn away, so we made a tool to complete the texturing on the normalized face. When finished, we wanted to protect the face from scale when hardening the W1 face to a cherry red. Too much scale would wreck the sharpness of the work. The student had an answer that she used in her work. She mixed technical grade boric acid acquired from the silversmith supply store with denatured alcohol and applied about 3 coats…

Hi All I don't know if this is the right place for this but I'm wondering how feasible it is to try to achieve professional looking results from using electroplating to copper plate metal using a home set up. I've seen videos on youtube etc but haven't been impressed with the results. Is this because you need to go to professionals or can anyone point me to a good resource where I can learn to do it to a decent finish. The project I'm thinking of requires quite a bit of plating of small parts which I think is going to get costly hence trying to achieve results at home. Cheers Joe

I ran across a technique for removing heavy rust from steel and iron. It consists of filling a nonconductive container with water adding sodium carbonate (pool additive to raise PH) teaspoon per gallon of water. You then attach a battery charger (car variety) negative electrode to rusyed part and then attach positive electrode to a piece of scrap steel. Caution are to wear protective goggles, do not allow the + and - charged parts to touch, dont reach in the water while connected, etc and use in a well ventilated area as hydrodgen gas is a by product. Supposedly this process will not harm the base metal, no matter how long left in process. I have several old sets of …

Hello guys, mandatory science fair coming up and i've got a project in mind. I want to talk about the electron sharing and fusion of iron and steel at high temperatures. Does anyone have a good source of info on the specifics of forge welding? I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

I am looking for a in color spark test chart for class and I cant seem to find one, and I know there is one around...anyone have one?

There has been some discussion between 1018 and A 36 and the differences, It is time to go to the references and get the facts. Ref onlinemetals 1018 Mild Steel Alloy 1018 is the most commonly available of the cold-rolled steels. It is generally available in round rod, square bar, and rectangle bar. It has a good combination of all of the typical traits of steel - strength, some ductility, and comparative ease of machining. Chemically, it is very similar to A36 Hot Rolled steel, but the cold rolling process creates a better surface finish and better properties. 1018 Mild (low-carbon) steel Minimum Properties Ultimate Tensile Strength, psi 63,800 Yield S…

Hi folks, can anyone point me towards a product that will quickly clean forged mild steel surface oxides and possibly some light rust back to a bright sheen? I'm working to a tight time frame so I don't have time to concoct a homebrew unless it's really basic. The outdoor bench I'm making will ultimately be weatherproofed with a clear acrylic lacquer. Ideally I'd use some kind of spray on cleaner or a wipe on cleaner that I buff up after it's done it's work. When I say quickly I mean half a day maximum, I.E, wipe or spray on the product, give it a few hours to do it's thing, buff it off. I'm trying to avoid using a flap disc or manually sandpapering the bench because …

I normally only forge blades which I always finish with simple oil and a polish, but recently I've been getting into decorative work and I'm having some serious rust issues. I think part of it may come from when I quench some pieces in brine, but most are not and I keep my brine bath stored outside! Up until now I've always finished my products by wire brushing then spraying with a few coats of clear coat or sometimes painted. All my clear coated pieces always rust through. I always thought it was because I wasn't cleaning them enough, the most recent pieces I did I wire brushed to almost a polish, then cleaned the whole thing with isopropyl to make sure it was entirely c…

I've looked around a bit but to no avail. My question is this, I live in good old South Africa far from the USA where many of these bluing solutions originate and I was wondering if it would be possible to use HCl to induce the rust in the steel needed for the rust bluing process. All I find in the forum is reference to an acid solution. If you have any other thoughts on the matter please share them I am willing to learn as many DIY methods as possible without having to resort to paying tonnes of money if possible.

I normally soak stock in vinegar overnight to wire brush off the mill scale the next day, Problem was I forgot to put the bar stock in LOL So I brought the metal to a black heat and dropped it in the vinegar. An hour later, it brushed off as easily as if it had soaked all night. Before I get 'hate mail', PPE with good ventilation was used.

Many of you here have been blacksmiths for many a year, I however, have just started a few months ago. Nowadays, wrought iron is very hard to come buy as it isn't produced in any scale any more, and as most of what I do is bladesmithing, I've never really forged iron. I saw a wonderful example of an etched wrought iron crossguard and pommel on the forums, and I'd like to make something similar for a knife I am making. From what I gather, wrought iron is iron that has been folded, welded and hammered many times to get rid of many of the impurities found in cast iron. I have a piece of cast iron I managed to find, so if I were to weld it back on itself many times, I would…

Some members on IFI tell us they can identify what tool steel or alloy they have by spark testing. I say that is just bunk with a capital B. Historically smiths would determine that there was carbon present in iron and spark testing just told them about a relative content. So if you are one of those IFI members that think he or she can tell me what an alloy is with a spark test, you post here and I will give you the challenge. I will send you 5 alloy steels for your testing and we will see how well you fair. No spectrometers allowed!

Just wondering what to use to keep stuff from rusting without painting it after you finish it. Inside and outside stuff?