IronAlchemy

In principle, that is a sensible answer George. However, boiling point of copper is 4643F and has a fairly low vapor pressure at temperatures below the melting point of iron which I am sure was not exceeded here. Caveat - I do not cast copper but I am a chemist so do understand something of the issues. Consider this a [guess]. Oxygen is quite soluble in copper (up to about 1%). From the look of the ingot, you could well be seeing outgassing at the center where it looks as if you are pouring the molten metal. The oxygen would form a gas as the metal cools in this region forming the bubbles that you see in the ingot. You could consider pouring at a lower temperature which would mean less oxygen in solution and having the mold hotter for slower cooling to allow the gas to escape more effectively. From the look of the ingot, the metal cools pretty rapidly on contact with the mold. Also consider how you pour to minimize the contact of the copper with air. Commercially, I think that they use phosphorus or lithium as a deoxidizer to avoid this issue. Let us know how it progresses.

I cannot say that I have done a price comparison but for many years I have bought rivets from Jaycee Sales (rivetsonline.com). They have a pretty wide selection of metals (brass, copper, steel, stainless, monel, aluminum) and a wide size selection. I have also used their pop rivets.

I am not an expert but did build one and have used it quite a bit. I have never had to adjust my shims so I checked the manual. You should have the same number of shims on each side of the ram if possible. Install as many shims as you can and still raise the ram in the guide. Typically there are two shims on one side of the ram and three on the other for each axis. If you have binding of the shims and they are slipping out, perhaps they are too tight or not kept oiled well enough. Maybe there is debris on the ram that is causing friction. You might want to double check the geometry of your clips if the shims are slipping past them. If you find the magic fix, please post back so we all can learn.

I have cut hundreds of blanks of this size on annealed S7 on my portaband. If hardened, an abrasive cutoff wheel works fine. Waterjet sounds like major overkill and *very* expensive. Losing a single blade testing on the portaband will likely be a small fraction of the setup charge on a water jet.

For books, go to bluemoonpress.com and search repousse. I am not familiar with European artists or training opportunities but in the US you can check out Doug Pryor (http://douglaspryor.com) and Saign Charlestein (http://www.saignc.com) as current artists who also teach. Saign sells tools as well. Ernie Dorrill used to teach but has pretty much retired. Dan Nauman, Tom Latane, Peter Renzetti and Carl Close are also well know US blacksmiths who do chasing and repousse in iron. There are numerous other artists that you can find online.

I have the manual for my 100lb Ironkiss. Each hammer came with a manual specifically for that hammer since John Larson often made ongoing improvements and changes. Maintenance should be similar. Contact me with a personal message if you want a copy of my manual and I will scan it in.

For the kind of items you are making, no additional treatment is typically needed to maintain corrosion resistance. The main issue you may have is if you use a non-stainless wire brush on your items that can transfer iron onto the surface. This can lead to more surface rust though much less than on a mild steel item. It is true that if you passivate with (preferably) citric acid or nitric acid, you will change the as-forged look. I have items forged without further treatment and used outside for 15 years that are rust free or with only a few specks of rust on them. They still look pretty much the same as when I first finished them.

Sad to see a good tool crack. I have had a lengthwise quench failure in a hammer exactly like this when I quenched 4140 in water. It may well be that the quench was too aggressive. When you heat a quench oil, it reduces the viscosity and greatly accelerates the convective stage of the quench. Contrary to intuition, hot oil typically quenches more aggressively than cold oil.

Speaking as a chemist and not someone who has actually tested this, ferric chloride should freeze and thaw without damage. That said, you need to have it in a container that will not break when the liquid expands on freezing. The active etching from ferric chloride comes from hydrochloric acid released in the solution. It just does not maintain as high a concentration of acid as you can get with pure HCl.

Brian's anvil design is for use with a striker. They are intentionally made from mild steel so that they are soft when struck by missed blows and can easily be dressed when abused. They are mounted lower than a conventional anvil to allow for the height of top tooling over a hardie tool. They are not really for general use.

Usually I use the forge (gas or coal) to heat the struck end but it makes no difference how you do it. Torch does work fine.

Like Thomas says, S7 works great for hot working tools especially for something like slitting where the tool can get very hot. It is also really good for tools used cold when the edge is left at a hard temper. All my chasing tools are S7 for example. S7 generally heat treats easily because of the air hardening. As mentioned, it does not normalize. It needs to be heated to 1750F (typically described as cherry). When heating from cold for forging or heat treatment, don't heat it too fast. Heat it gradually or it can develop cracks from that. Folks preferences vary but I like to harden the whole tool as you did since the struck end will mushroom if left fully annealed. I think it most likely that the problem you had was that you only tempered the cutting edge whereas you hardened the whole tool. This left everything but the edge fully hardened and brittle. Also when you temper S7, it takes a quite high temperature to reduce the hardness. I temper the struck end to at least 1000F which is about where you just see color in the metal which would leave it near Rc 50 which is still pretty hard. Straw color is typically about 450F in carbon steels which would leave your edge at ~Rc 55. That said, alloy steels do not exhibit the same temper colors as carbon steel. I have dozens of S7 tools forged without heat treating in an oven and have yet to have a failure so it is generally pretty forgiving.

I have a #58 with the side shelf and I use the shelf frequently. I kept the edges on the shelf a bit sharper than the anvil edges so they are useful for forging a sharp inside corner. Also it is useful for straightening with the piece bridging between the anvil surface and the shelf much as you might do across the hardie hole. I really like the gradual curved transition from the anvil face to the horn on the #58. It gives me a whole new set of curves readily at hand. I moved from a London pattern anvil and the only thing that I occasionally miss is the step. I make up for that with a hardie tool that gives close to the same functionality.

There is an article where Peter Ross shows how to hand forge this part out of iron if you would rather go that way. Bronze I am sure would work but I have never seen one out of bronze. http://www.anvilmag.com/smith/107f2.htm Regs, Doug

It takes less force to bend square stock on the diagonal than on the flat. Clay Spencer kindly showed me a quick moment of inertia calculation for the two orientations to make the point. I place one face on the curve of the horn to provide some support and forge curves freehand. As already noted, special tooling is needed to do a upset corner on the diagonal.

Passivation leaves the surface looking pretty much like it did when you started. Dull surfaces remain dull and polished surfaces remain polished. The most obvious change would be that, if you had any rust stains, they would be removed. If the item was forged in a coal forge, some black marks from the fire may be cleaned off as well. Therefore, if I want the piece to look hand forged, I often do not passivate it. In my climate in central NC, forged items left outdoors continue to looked fresh forged long term even without passivation and (my favorite part) no finish.

Passivating removes any free iron on the surface of the stainless increasing the concentration of nickel and chromium. As you note, it is a very shallow surface effect, and grinding and heavy buffing will require you to redo the passivation. I also have not seen aluminum sulphate used for this but it may well work. In water, it hydrolyzes producing a mild sulphuric acid solution. I prefer to use 10% citric acid in water solution (ASTM A967). I use it heated to 140 F (60C). It should take about 10 minutes. The citric acid waste is biodegradable and the solution will in fact grow mold which is a down side if you are not replacing it regularly. This solution also works well for copper pickling although it is slightly slower than hot bisulfite or sulfuric acid pickles. Citric acid is way safer to use than traditional nitric acid which is a very strong acid. I passivate to prevent any rust spots that might appear from iron that is picked up during forging using steel tools. If I grind or buff a piece, I don't bother passivating it. If an item will be near salt water, passivation helps a lot to prevent rust.

Glenn has it spot on that product photography is all about using the light to tell the story about your subject. There is a lot to be said for controlling your light with light tents or other diffusers. The cheap alternative is to photograph outdoors on a cloudy day. You don't have as much control but it can get you started quickly and cheaply. For the "egghead" discussion on product photography, I recommend "Light Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting". I have done product photography for many years and still refer to this. A more accessible discussion on lighting with a series of exercises you can work through to get you thinking about how lights and cameras interact is at strobist.com; click on the "Lighting 101" link. Don't hesitate to sent me personal email if you want additional help or critique. Enjoy!

You are in a great area for 18th century iron in NC. Take a look at Jerry Darnell's collection of class notes on 18th century iron from all the years that he has taught at John C Campbell Folkschool. You can buy it direct from Jerry. Check out his website at http://millcreekforge.com. I think he is still teaching. If you are a member of NC ABANA, you could apply for a scholarship to take one of his classes. Good luck, Doug Wilson

My daughter forged in Spain as part of a college exchange. She told me that the term "acero dulce" was used for what we call "pure iron". As Thomas suggests, it is ultra low carbon and indeed very easy to forge. It was used for all the restoration jobs that she saw. Doug

Here is what I have found about the basic chemistry and pharmacology of borax. I am a chemist with some background in toxicology. I can read and understand this stuff but am not a scientific expert in the chemistry and toxicology of boron. The links are updated from a post that I made around 2000 on theForge mailing list.Borax (sodium tetraborate decahydrate) - Na2B4O7.10H2O decomposes losing 8 H2O at 167 F boils losing 10 H2O at 608 F sodium tetraborate (anhydrous) melts at 1366 F This means that if you want to create anhydrous borax so that it does not bubble when you use it, you only have to get it over 608 F. You do not have to melt this into a glass that needs to be reground for use which many folks report doing. Personally, I find that the partially dehydrated compound that I get decomposing it over 167 F, works well for me. It is lots easier to produce as well.Borax can poison you but it takes quite a bit; ~5-10 g in children and ~15-20 g in adults. Poisoning is most common in children from ingestion of borax used as a laundry agent. Boron has a half-life of about 24 hours in humans; i.e., half of the compound in your body will be excreted every 24 hours. It has been noted that boron can cause lowered sperm count in lab animals. OSHA recommends < 30 ppm inhaled for an 8 hour exposure for borax. This is the general limit set for "nuisance" dusts that have no known inhaled toxicity. Borax is not readily absorbed through the skin. Because of its low skin absorption, boric acid has been used to powder latex gloves. Boric acid solutions have also been widely used to irrigate wounds since it is bacteriostatic (keeps bacteria from growing). Neither boron nor borax are a known carcinogen or mutagen.Recent evidence suggests that boron (at very element low levels) is an essential to support human life.Best Regards,Doug WilsonReferences:The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, Goodman and GillmanCRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics CDC statement on boron:http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tfacts26.pdfborax decahydrate as a pesticide/fungicide: http://www.fs.fed.us/foresthealth/pesticide/pdfs/022406_borax.pdf MSDS for 20 Mule Team Borax: Borax Decahydrate (Technical Grade)

I forge lots of Al and you can do pretty much anything with it that you can with steel; draw, upset, punch, ... except forge weld of course. The most common structural alloys in the US are 6061 and 6063. 6063 is slightly easier to forge than 6061 but is special order in the area where I live. Sheet in my area is predominantly 3003 which is quite soft, and can be annealed and forged much like copper. Forging (and annealing) temperature is 850-900F and is usually measured by periodically rubbing the heating metal with a pine stick (paint stirrer works) until the stick leaves a black mark on the surface. If the metal turns a slightly yellowish color on the surface, gently set it aside to cool and it *may* be OK. The forging temp requirements are the same for most common alloys so scrap is worth a try. Some 7000 series aircraft alloys are quite hard and more difficult to forge, but the few that I have tried are all easier than forging steel. If this is for a salt water environment, you might consider knowing your alloy since copper containing alloys are much more subject to corrosion. Good luck, Doug

Thanks for sharing. The heat patina looks great. I have a project with some welds to match in hot rolled stainless plate that I had hoped to do with a scaler. This gives me hope that the approach will work. I forge a lot in stainless and love it because I hate to finish and refinish my work. The as-forged look is very much like steel but you can easily get the nice highlights if you want to show that it is stainless. Rule of thumb is that it takes 1 ½ times the effort to forge stainless over regular mild steel. A power hammer really helps. Unfortunately, forge welding does not work so many traditional designs are not possible. Doug Wilson

There is usually only one washer on a post vise. Have a look at this 2001 article by James Melchior and Peter Ross in Anvil Magazine on repairing leg vises. It describes the different types of washers, forged and cast, and demonstrates how to make a forged one. As a newbie, you would probably need some help doing this level of forging but it is what blacksmiths do. Let us know how it progresses. - Doug

We have not seen any chipping of S7 dies from our 10 machine tire hammer build with them hardened to Rc 56-58. We did a follow on build of power hammer tools also done in S7. I agree with metalmangeler's comments on top tool hardness. We were careful to harden the top tools to more like Rc 50 (temper at 1000 F). I know a lot of people try to leave the striking end of S7 tools annealed but I find that they just do not hold up even to hand hammer work without some hardening. S7 is incredibly tough but I have seen S7 tools chip when they were thin sections air quenched to unknown hardness after getting very hot in use. The challenge with large sections like dies is to get them hard enough. You may have to work to cool them fast enough. There is a risk that the smaller sections where you machined the mounting holes will cool faster and crack. Personally, I think you will be OK...but I choose to lead life as an optimist. :-) I have attached the PDF of my welding and heat treatment protocol that I sent by messaging to you so that others can have it as a reference. It has been well tested in my shop but be aware that the section on cryo-treatment has not. I guess I have not yet felt the need to make S7 dies even tougher. Thanks for sharing your results. S7 die heat treat protocol.pdf