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I Forge Iron

mick maxen

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Everything posted by mick maxen

  1. Just ordinary files, nothing special. Mick.
  2. Steve, from your description it sounds like you ground in the diamonds and then forged the blade out. If you go this way you need the pattern to be very tight as the drawing/forging out stretches the pattern as you have found out. A more controlled way is to forge the blade out to almost the finished size but leave it thick enough and put the pattern in with a chisel that is slightly doomed so it has the profile similar to a 1/4 or 5/16 bar. Hammer the pattern in to a 1/3rd of the thickness of the bar then grind the bar flat. You will get the same effect, just a differant and more controlled way of doing it. When I do Ladder patterns or similar, I will have at least 250 to 300 layers in the bar. Twisting nickel can be tricky as its stretch rate is not the same as carbon steel. Mick.
  3. I shall be there with Basher as we are demonstrating Iron Smelting. Look for two blokes mixing mud and probably covered in charcoal dust. We will be building the furnace on the Wednesday or Thursday and running the smelt on the Friday. See you there Mick.
  4. Benton, As far as I know, the sockets were not welded just rolled round to form the socket. One thing to remember is that most of these were only used once and the design of most war points with the barbs on would prevent removal anyway. Also it was probably a lot better that the arrowhead stayed in the enemy. The smaller swallow tail and broadhead hunting points for game had small holes in the socket so they could be firmly attached to the arrowshaft with a small nail or similar. Hector Cole's name has been mentioned and he is the expert in the UK for anything to do with arrow heads, forging and the history side of it. Do a search for his website and he has a page that shows all the differant styles of points that he makes. Mick.
  5. The hawk is made from a billet of 400 plus layers and is 8" long with a 3" edge. Total length is about 23" with a Curly Maple handle that was made from a 2" block. The mouthpiece is antler and Buffalo horn. The smoke hole stopper is also Buffalo horn and this screws into a fancy piece of my inscription damascus. The blade was forged out and all the shaping has been done by file work. Some photos, Mick.
  6. Frosty, you are right about Nickel. 15N20 does have around 0.4% manganese and would etch a light grey, but the influencing alloy is the 2% Nickel keeping the steel bright and resisting the etch. CS70 has on average 0.7% manganese and etches a dark grey. 20C has about 0.45% manganese and again will etch a light grey. Chromium is another alloy which will influence what colour/shade you get in the etch unless the manganese content is high.. If you know what you are doing and know the alloy make up of various steels you can use this to your advantage and get some interesting patterns that look almost 3d. A low manganese steel next to a high manganese steel in your pattern will give a shadow effect to the darker steel. Mick.
  7. CS70 is UK spec steel and 20C is from Sweden but they are very similar to your 1075 and 1095 carbon steels. I etch all my pattern welding in ferric chloride as its safer and the etch is cleaner in my opinion. It is a general misconception that the carbon content has anything to do with the colour of the etch, I used to think that myself. It is in fact the Manganese that dictatates whether the dark layers are shades of grey to almost black. The photo below shows some pure iron inlaid into a pattern welded bar. The pure iron is almost the same colour as the 15n20. Mick.
  8. Thanks for the kinds words about this piece. Benton, the pattern welded steel is made using 15N20 and either CS70 or 20C. 15N20 has 2% nickel and is the bright part of the pattern. CS70 is a 0.7% carbon steel and 20C is a 1% carbon steel. No pure iron or wrought in this piece at all I'm afraid Frosty. From my experience pure iron etches bright along with wrought which etches a grainy bright, if that makes sense. Mick.
  9. I had fun making this and working out how best to do it. The socket is forged from mild steel and the front section was tapered to about 1mm. The hardest weld is the point of the socket into the pattern welded piece. I decided to jump weld this in before any welding on the sides. Sounds easy but the socket for the arrow shaft is only 10mm diameter on the inside and the wall thickness is under 1mm. So I used a tapered round bar to hold this. It also had the advantage of making the socket cold enough not to buckle or work open as I lightly jump welded the two together, then welded down the sides.   Once the two pieces are welded together there is not really any chance of tweaking the socket back into shape other than bending the tails out of the way, which I didn't want to do. I have a pair of specially adapted tongs for holding the socket after its all welded up which makes life a lot easier. The arrow head is a Swallow Tail head about 110mm long and 45mm across the tails and weighs about an ounce. Mick.
  10. chichi, This was done in the old style of being wrapped around a sleeve and mandrel. So when its all welded up the bore is the size of the mandrel. Mick.
  11. The other option is to spirally wrap it like this pattern welded barrel piece I made a while ago, It looks almost hexagonal in the photo but it is round and about 3/4" in diameter. Mick.
  12. Hello Debbie, It will be worth you keeping an eye on this site as there are a few County Shows in your area that all have blacksmithing competitions, http://www.blacksmithscompetition.co.uk/index.html The dates for this year are not up yet but they are usually around the same time each year. Also have a look at the links to each show on the left hand side for some contact names, most are blacksmiths. Have a look on the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths site under their awards section and there should be a list of medal holders and some contact info. There is also the Blacksmiths Guild down Exeter way. John Bellamy is a member and posts on here in the Blacksmiths UK section. Have a look at the BABA web site as well for some contact info. I can't help in regards to popping round as I am about 3 hrs away, but good luck in your new venture. Everything will fall into place eventually and get tailored to how you work. Have fun, Mick.
  13. Nic, I don't think you will ever stop that from warping by clamping it down. It sounds like you have a bend and a twist, which makes things that bit more difficult. You could try and spot weld on the other side to where you have already welded it, that may pull it back. Or get the hole thing hot and try and knock it back into shape. Failing the above efforts, is there anyway you can fix the 10mm square by using countersunk screws. If the piece is going to be painted afterwards they can be easily hidden by some body filler or make a feature out of the fixings. Mick.
  14. Nic, I looked into this a few years ago and the advice was that all light fittings need to be approved. I think BSI kite mark was mentioned which puts it outside the realms of a one man band like us. Look into this yourself though in case my info is wrong. If its a commission then you could make the fittings and have an electrician wire them up for the customer. That way you are not selling any electrical devices. What the legality of that is though, I have no idea. Mick.
  15. Gary, Whereabouts in Essex are you as the BABA address book shows 11 blacksmiths in Essex. Mick.
  16. The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths have a list of Mastersmiths. I don't know of any in Essex though, http://blacksmithscompany.org.uk/WWP/AwardHolders.shtml The other place to look is here http://www.baba.org.uk/ for any blacksmiths that might be local to you. Mick.
  17. Thanks Thomas, I have been using kissing dies for many years. It was quite a revalation when I first heard about them, such a simple idea. For those that don't know what we are talking about, have a look at the video of when Basher and I were at Ric Furrers place a few years back. We are using his Nazel 3B with bars of steel as forging stops. The video titled Owen and Mick forging in June. http://www.doorcountyforgeworks.com/Other_Artists.html Mick.
  18. David, the rollers are 50mm. I don't know about how much effective squish I can get as I have only made them for drawing out flat or tapered bar in small bites. They will most likely get used in pattern welding, but just out of the picture and to the right is a 1cwt power hammer which does most of the work. One thing they are very sensitive to are changes in the thickness of bars. You think you have a very flat piece of bar until you roll it through these and it starts to bend one way or the other. A slightly thicker section on one edge and you can get a fair bit of a bend as that edge tries to become longer than the other. Mick.
  19. I have been meaning to make one of these for ages. The design inspiration is from the McDonald Mill using the material I had. The 3 phase, 3hp motor is running at 1400rpm through a 100/1 reduction box. The sprocket on the reduction box has 17 teeth running a 5/8" chain to the top roller sprocket with 57 teeth. The rollers are 50mm and run at about 29 rpm, whch is about 14 feet per minute. The idea for using the inverter, which I already had was so that I can control the power the motor will take and not overload or break the mill. Also to be able to adjust the speed it runs at, but 29 rpm seems just right. The only job I had someone else do was to fit a phosphor bronze sleeve in the bottom roller to take the 1" shaft. The bottom roller carriage is made from 45 x 20mm bar. Just in case you are thinking about safety, it does have a full chain guard. It has also been made so that it comes apart and the frame breaks down in to 5 pieces. Mick.
  20. Grem, The book I metioned is just one book, but with a long title, see here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Japanese-Sword-Swordmaking-Appreciation/dp/4805312408/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383243196&sr=1-1&keywords=the+art+of+the+japanese+sword#_ Mick.
  21. Grem, It would be impossible to tell from the documentary that the plate was iron. The smith would have carefully graded the tamahagane into high , medium and low carbon steel and made the plate/paddle out of what grade steel he wanted. Below is a photo of 3 kilos of wafers that have been forged out from a bloom of steel into 1/4" thick plates and quenched in water to harden, then broken into pieces. Then they are graded according to the carbon content which can be judged by spark testing on a grinder or how fine the grain is where they cracked. After you have selected what grade steel you want to use from the wafers it does not take very long to weld up a paddle big enough to stack more wafers on. A very good book that goes into great detail about all the processes involed in making a Japanese sword and full of great colour photos is called, The Art of the Japanese Sword, The Craft of Swordmaking and its Appreciation, by Leon and Hiroko Kapp, Yoshindo Yoshihara and published by Tuttle Mick.
  22. John, Great to see that this is now going to happen. Looking forward to it. Mick.
  23. A while ago I was commissioned to make a sword blade. The blade is a 3 core interupted and offset twist with each bar having 14 layers, with a wrapped cutting edge of about 450 layers. I supplied the blade in a forged to shape finish to the customers spec of a 32" blade, 2 1/4" at the hilt and 1 1/2" wide at two inches back from the tip. These specs are about the same as a Giebig 3 classification blade. All the grinding, fixtures and fittings and leatherwork were by Rob Miller the Cutler/Bladesmith I supplied the blade to. Mick.
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