Richard Furrer

Hello All, I found this chart years ago in a 1940's era book on steel. I have found it useful for estimating forces needed for some operations. Ric

Ken, You have had many good ideas presented to you....do those. Welding heat test: Here is simple to test for welding heat by using a thin pointed 1/4" bar as a poker. Heat the thin taper and gently drag it across the area to be welded (it will gather a flux coating from the metal in the fire or you can dip it in flux prior to heating)...if it is at good heat with low oxidation you will feel the poker stick to the metal. No need to guess nor shield from sunlight nor sparks nor any other contrivances....the metal will let you know via the drag welding of the poker. Ric

I kicked loose a rock on the way to the shop and threw it at a ground squirrel.....does that count? I'm so limited now in that my first thought is .... heat it up. One time I did not want to light the forge so I hot bent a bar by grinding half way through with the belt sander till the steel got hot with friction and then gave it a hurt in the vice. Ric

I would agree about the oxidation issue...any oxide prevented means more metal and less pickling to remove. Liquid tin may be an issue with temp more than surface oxide. There are several coatings I use made by Advanced Technical Products in Cincinnati, OH 513-851-6858 They may have one for bronze/coppers. Using salt pots may be a good idea as well depending upon volume of production.....a pot large enough for a full cymbal would be, well, big. Ric

There is an adage "if you can not straighten a blade you can not make a blade". Most of the time industry moves to higher alloy and less severe quenches to avoid cracking, warpage and other heat treat issues. Air hardening steel for example. I know of no coating that prevents the detrimental occurrences of volume change/stress in heat treating. What you can do is make a form to support the work. For steel blades it can be as simple as a thick flat steel bar with a clamp. For other metals of odd shapes....such as say ...drum kit cymbals....then a top and bottom form of aluminum or copper cooled with water cooling channels or having holes to allow for water to get in/out may be in order. Or the same top/bottom press mold idea to be the step following a quench to force the item back into shape. Ric

For years my only non-intentional fire was from the sparks off the arc welder. I have been forging titanium a bit the past two years and the grind sparks on that metal is very intense. It can light a fire 30 feet away if you are not watching.... By far the most dangerous is what you experienced Cody...you turned the wood to charcoal and charcoal can smolder for many many hours and seem fine, then ignite. After a bloomery smelt all the waste goes into a metal drum full of water...charcoal and all. When I shut down for the day I turn it all off and then wait a bit. Sweep the floor, put away tools...the reason is to find the no-see-em flame source. Five minutes is cheap insurance. Ric

Ian, I'll review my schedule and let you know today....what this actually means is I will ask my wife and she will tell me what I have forgotten. Just to clarify: Will you be here in August or September? Ric

How close to Taranaki is it? Ric

Found this online: "The Hollywood Reporter as following "a cowardly sheep farmer (MacFarlane) who chickens out of a gunfight and sees his girlfriend (Seyfried) leave him for another man. When a mysterious woman (Theron) rides into town, she helps him find his courage. But when her outlaw husband arrives seeking revenge, the farmer must put his newfound courage to the test. Neeson would play Theron's outlaw husband." It was co-written by MacFarlane and his longtime creative partners Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild." Not much room for smithing I would think. Most likely just used to flesh out the western town, but there is always hope. Ric

Didymium does next to NOTHING for our forges. It does WONDEFUL things for sodium flare off of glass work. Most of the UV protection on those glasses is from the gold coating. Shade three is just fine for most all the forging you will ever do. Ric

Try Michelle at Ajax/Tocco Michelle R. Pankuch, Ajax Tocco Magnethermic Corporation 1745 Overland Avenue NE Warren, OH 44483 Phone: 330 372 8637 e-mail: mpankuch@ajaxtocco.com I recently got a quote on this for the units I am getting up and running: PI24870 Magnecool Antifreeze Solution 30/70 Mix (55 Gallon Drum)

I've gone from flowing locks of beard hair to "whatsthasmell?" in next to no time when the wind shifts direction when forging with charcoal at demonstrations. I used to know numbers on hardwood charcoal and dung and coal for max temps. Upwards of 3,000F on charcoal is not all that hard to hit with hand bellows. I see that 4892F is the max theoretical temp, but.... Coal would be less I would think and vary with impurities. Charts say 3,590F under ideal conditions. Dung fires will burn at 1100F in ovens for cooking...no bellows, but natural draft of air. Add a bellows and you could forge with it. Ric

If I had water in the shop I'd have a washing machine out there...of course the neighbors would not appreciate the walk from the shop to the house, but..or is that butt..... Floyd, Have a look at auctions in your area..you may be able to locate good kit cheaply. I rather like the idea of screw compressors, but I got such a deal on a large dual compressor unit that I could not say no. Ric

I must second what Yaggy has suggested. It may be a good way to locate an offsite asset for future work as well. I have gotten jobs from both the folk I have sent my work to. I have my local steel supplier/fab shop do some blasting for me and when it comes to paint I have a powder-coating place 50 miles away which blasts and paints. The two of them have large tooling which I do not have the space or need to have here and when they have the project I can move on to other things. On large jobs I forge some parts and assemble and then take it to them to do their subwork while I am back at the shop making the rest of the rails. That said I am a HUGE fan of having everything in house, but as a one man shop the house gets crowded with tools I use an hour a month if that. For specialty work like that I prefer to let others do the gig. I just subbed out some machining which I may have done here in a few weeks time with great effort....the machine shop will have them all done in a matter of days and a higher quality. Ric

Ian...sounds good. See you and yours on the 4th then. Think about what you wish to do in the shop ...if anything. I'll have a few more large pieces of kit in place by then...a 50KW induction heater among other things. I have it in mind to pull a 2" bar in half with my bare hands....since liquid metal does not require much pulling. In the winter we have some ice which approximates a small glacier, but nothing to rival Alaska. The drive from Chicago (once you clear the city) is not a bad one. Along the west shore of Lake Michigan and then into farm country till you get rather close to me. During the day I would call it pretty...at night I would call it dark. Alaska: Not sure where you will sail in Alaska, but there is a smith in Juneau, Alaska ..David Mirabile' as I recall. He has a gallery just down the road from the docks. Danger...there is room for one more...if you are not otherwise engaged. Ric

Ian, I am 250 miles North of Chicago (about a four hour drive or a one hour hop on a plane to Green Bay, WI ("GRB"))...You are welcome here for a week or so if you care to. Ric

Brittle: It can destroy itself when quenched...the dreaded "tink" in the water. It can be so brittle that it will break just sitting in the corner. It can be so brittle that it will break when dropped on the floor. It can be so brittle that it snaps on the swing to cutting something. it can be so brittle that if it were a blade the tip could fly off when the edge encounters something to cut. An improperly tempered sword can be snapped with bear hands....or even bare hands. An improperly tempered axe can leave its cutting edge in the tree you just tried to fall. Ric

The 6B plans I sent you were not good? Ric

You may have a product line in that. Ric

I pitched a few shows similar to the Woodwright's shop...not enough interest. It is mostly about fake confrontation and argument these days...and high technology for tooling. I find solace in the fact that ANYTHING having to do with blades is making on TV. I hope they do well. A show on blacksmithing would be good. "Battling Blacksmiths" perhaps? Ric

Ohio has many tools...I'd be surprised if you can not locate on there. The issue is table size. 200 ton could be 10x10 working area or three foot square. I assume with plane parts you need a large table for the dies. You may find a company with surplus equipment who would donate a tool for the tax right off to a museum. Ric

Woodsmith, Wonderful work there....very elegant. Questions from the uninitiated.....do you keep some of the wooden form in the completed vehicle? They seem a handy thing to have in pattern storage should another order come around. I would be proud of that one. Ric

Lead and tin were also used for both quenching and tempering (both in heated liquid form as poking a hot tool into solid lead would be its own sideshow trick). Porkchop, As far as I know very few studies have looked into old methods of heat treating and the resulting microstructure. Many of the old ways have been supplanted simply by the use of modern steelmaking practices. The older made steels do not respond the same way that modern steels do and many of the alloys now used were not available for steelmaking in the past...well they had them around on Earth, but not in forms that were thrown into the pot. An iron/carbon steel without alloys is hard to come by today and this was the mainstay for the old tools. If you have the time have a read through the "Blacksmith's and Boilermaker's trade journals from the 1800's. They complain about the new manganese steel being sold as "normal" tool steel and how it is near impossible to forge or heat treat as it needed more force to forge and would crack if water quenched. you see manganese rids steel of sulphur (binds it into MnS and renders it inert more or less rather than the Sulphur making the steel hot short)..it also increases the depth of hardness for the steel when quenched. I would think the above MT Richardson quote relates to this type of steel. Ric

Wes, Looks real good and I'm sure they will work very well once you work with them a bit. Suggestion if you will. Think about rolling the point into a scroll on the horns.....my fear is that they will catch a young one's eye as they are now.... OR maybe a good whiskey cork lashed on each one and make a joke of them when asked. Ric

Bogdan, I am curios about this statement of yours: "If you work with a char coal forge with side blast and properly keep the air volume, the distance and mass of coal between tyere and piece virtually no decarbonisation happens. Quite opposite you can get carbonisation if you intend to. It was tested many times both by me and many others beginning from my teacher V. I. Basov in the 70-s" I agree that a properly tended fire can maintain the steel more or less as it was made as far as chemistry, but I think it a rare smith who can do this all day. A fire can remove or add carbon as well. I would guess that unless a smith is wishing to have a certain atmosphere in the fire then that atmosphere will change during the forging. Not much information from your part of the world has made it to the US....I would like this to change. Keep posting please. Ric