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I Forge Iron

glyph250

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Everything posted by glyph250

  1. I'll be the rude one. How much are you gonna sell this thing for? It's amazing.
  2. 0. Keep in mind these are blanket statements with some exceptions. Blacksmithing has no hard and fast rules, but some pretty good rules of thumb. 1. The low setting is probably your problem, if you're using hardwood charcoal and not the grill stuff. Keep in mind that a fire goes from red to orange to yellow to white, with shades and variations of each color. If your fire is dull red, the hottest your piece will get is dull red. Technically that's hot enough to work with, but I wouldn't want to do it. Try to keep the fire somewhere in the orange to yellow range when you have your metal in it. Turn your air up and keep it up until the coals/charcoal in the fire are the color you want. 2. Never, ever use briquettes. They contain a lot of clay. Like the clinkers in crappy coal, that's going to suck a lot of heat from your fire. I tried forging with briquettes, years ago. It was so awful I was turned off from blacksmithing until a couple of weeks before my join date here (which was not very long ago). Please don't do that to yourself. =) 3. As someone else mentioned, the size of your air opening dictates the amount of air you're giving the fire. More air = more heat = less work when you're actually hitting metal with a hammer. 4. Coal is better than charcoal for most of the things you'll be doing at first. It's made out of the same material (carbon), but it's denser, so it's got more BTUs. As you've probably discovered, you'll use about three times as much hardwood charcoal as you will coal for the same job. Consider charcoal only when you can get it for much cheaper than coal (very rarely), make it yourself (possible, and fun if you like slinging dirt at bonfires), or need an extremely clean fire, like for welding. 5. You should have access to Sewall, which as somebody else has pointed out, is the coal of your dreams. My recommendation is that you don't buy it. It is bliss, but bliss doesn't come cheaply. I bought two fifty-pound sacks for thirty-two dollars in Louisville, which isn't terribly far from the mines. Industrial grade stoker will probably get you where you want to go. It'll have some clinker, but read a bit about fire maintenance and you'll have a good enough fire for most things. Some places have it as low as $.04 a pound, and you might use fifteen pounds of it in a day if you're trying hard and have a forge that always burns hot (which is the opposite of your problem).
  3. @John N: The process you described is exactly what I did, except I quenched in oil after the temper. Would that make a difference? It seems to me that it would make it less likely to warp that way, not more, but I'm no expert. That said, the part that was thinner was the part that warped, so a lot of you guys could be right about edge thickness. @bigfootnampa: My process for sharpening blades is a little different. I use a wetstone (dry) to put a sharp edge on it, and then I use 1500 grit sandpaper in lieu of a strop to get that razor sharp edge. This is what I do with the straight razor I already own, as well as all my pocket and camping knives. It works pretty well--well enough for me to shave with, anyway. Thanks again for your comments, guys.
  4. This thing is so metal I can't even believe it.
  5. As someone with EXTENSIVE experience with silica gel, let me recommend that you don't do this. Silica gel is a carcinogen, and when crushed it becomes airborne, like asbestos. I worked with the stuff every day for a year, and never did so without a mask. Actually, that's a lie. I did work with it without a mask, but then I was stupid and got yelled at for it.
  6. So many great posts! I've learned a lot from all of your comments. Let me revise point one, on the advice of BIGGUNDOCTOR, to read: Make quick passes on thin work. BIGGUNDOCTOR, I never did get around to wearing gloves when working my grinder. It might have saved me a digit. For others reading this thread, I'd like to point out that since only one slow pass on a coarse wheel (albeit a slow one) left a burn on my right thumb, it's important not to make slow passes. FTR, a fine wheel had the same effect. @pkrankow: Good idea regarding the destruction testing. Making a second one won't be as challenging as the first, both because of the experience I gained and because... @son_of_bluegrass: I put a lot of work into stretching 2 inches of automobile coil spring with a 1/2 inch diameter into this blade. I estimate it to be 1085 from spark testing and reading. Hard enough to hold up at least a half ton of metal in its original job, at any rate. It turned out to be not enough to make a great straight razor, but just enough (after a lot of work) to make a straight razor-shaped object (SRSO). @Rich_Hale: I was just under a dime's thickness when heat-treating this blade. It might have curved due to my inexperience when it comes to heat treatment (just a few punches and other tools), or it's just now occurred to me that it might have been a grinding error. I need a belt grinder, or at least a lot more experience with long pieces on a bench grinder. Thanks for all the great advice. And if there's any more, please don't hesitate to post!
  7. I don't know how much material is enough material. Do you have a rule of thumb for this? And do you mean I should straighten it cold or hot?
  8. Clinkers are what's left over after you burn coke. Coke is what's left over after you drive out all the gases and vapors from coal. They're often reddish or metallic, with spiny protrusions. Sometime's they're shiny. Nearly always they're denser than the coke you're working with, as they tend to fuse together into a solid lump whenever they encounter each other in the hot spots of your fire. When they do this, yes, they do suck out heat from the fire--but just a little. A bigger problem is that they take up space that would have been occupied by coke. They don't burn, so they're not providing heat in places that need to have heat provided to them, making your fire colder than it would be otherwise.
  9. IMO, that hamon is the thing that goes the farthest toward making that knife look mean. Nice job.
  10. Well, here it is. I'm very happy with the overall shape, and with the lessons I learned the hard way about grinding with my bench grinder (1. wear gloves with thin work; 2. keep water nearby; 3. EDGE UP). Only one problem mars its functionality--when I either hardened or tempered this blade, it curved the edge a tiny bit. The spine is still okay, for the most part. You can see it if you look closely at the picture I'm attaching. I wouldn't care if it weren't meant to be rubbed all over somebody's face, but it is. Can this be remedied, or should I scrap the blade and try again? Thanks! **Edit: I should add that the major reason I'm even bothering to fix this is that I don't want anybody pointing out that my straight razor isn't straight enough.
  11. Three sources that cite using corn starch as a binder for charcoal briquettes: Charcoal - 100% Natural Hardwood brought to you by Laralee Distributors Charcoal briquettes bound with an organic binder and a water-swellable clay and method - Patent 5221290 How to Make Charcoal Briquettes | eHow.com Corn starch looks like it costs about two bucks for one container on froogle.com. I can't imagine it would be too much more expensive at a supermarket, but if you plan on making lots of this stuff, here's a site I found (through froogle as well) that will apparently sell you fifty pounds for $32. Are you going to start with a small batch? And is there any way I could ask for pictures without sounding like a creep? ;)
  12. A lot of sources on the web say you can use a corn starch paste as a binder for charcoal. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work with doo-doo.
  13. Nice response full of facts. I just wanted to add that vinegar is only a 5% solution of acetic acid, which as SM pointed out, is a very weakly dissociating acid. To work a little more safely, instead of a 1:4 ratio (one cup acid, one quart water), it might be a good idea to use only one cup per gallon of water, which will give you a little bit under a 2% mixture of HCl.:)
  14. Here's the bottom, covered with 24 ounces of refractory cement. I intend to grind it flat when it's dried, so clinkers and ash won't settle into those little finger grooves at the bottom. The piece of pipe sticking up will also be ground off. For those of you who have experience working with large amounts of fire clay, how long should I let it dry before I fire it? And again, any other thoughts?
  15. Ouch. Believe it or not, I tend to find being called "overbearingly proud; arrogant; presumptuous" more discouraging than finding something a bit harder than I thought. In truth, I do have a little bit of experience forge welding--not a lot, but more than my experience with any other type. I feel like I should point out that I should point out that my statement was made for ironic, rather than boastful, purposes. If I had this forge already, I could make this forge, no problem. But why would I need to? Yuck yuck yuck. But hey, this thread is about the forge I'm building, not my personal flaws. Please PM me with those. In the meantime, I'll post updated pictures.
  16. You've got a wife who forges and enjoys slapstick? AWESOME.
  17. That's one option. But keep in mind that with a well-maintained fire with good blacksmithing coal that has been moistened properly, small pieces of coal and even powdered coal will stick together when they form coke. To do this they must have a free-swelling index of at least 5; Pocahontas 3 ranges between 8.5 to 9. In short, you'll probably be fine. By the time your forge stops putting out nasty yellow smoke, most of what you're using will be too big to fall through those holes.
  18. I'm trying to make my first coal forge, and I don't have access to welding equipment (or the skill to use it, if I did). I feel confident I could manage some decent forge welds, if I had a forge, but that's not useful to me yet. Instead of a brake drum, I'm considering using this torque converter I parted with five bucks for at a junkyard. It already has a little pipe sticking out of the bottom, which could easily be made into the attachment point for a ghetto tuyere. All the little holes and the slight dip in the bottom will be filled with a thin layer of refractory cement to bring it into a bowl shape. Dimensions, in case you can't tell from the picture, are 12.5 inches across, a little over 2 inches deep, and 1/4 inch thick. So what do you think? Do you foresee any problems with this, or am I correct in thinking there's a chance it might work?
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