Karn3

This is by far the largest, most complicated project I have ever undertaken. I really threw myself in at the deep end when I said I could make this. Having finished it, I feel like I've had a bit of a level up moment. I feel 10x more competent than I did before.

http://imgur.com/a/oQTE1

I did well this year! Here's what I got:

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Wow, this is amazing, well done! How did you get the texture on the vines?

After I did this, I looked into alternate methods of welding very thin strips and that is something that I came across. I am definitely going to try it next time. Welding the very thin pieces was a bit of a headache, but a useful experience.

I finished up this blade a couple of days ago. It's just a straight pattern weld, made of ban saw blade and leaf spring. It was an interesting build because the band saw material I had was very thin. I first welded up a stack of the ban saw material, which is the thinnest steel I've ever forge welded. It took a couple of attempts and I actually ruined the first billet. I stick welded the stack of band saw together, but forgot to weld it in the middle so the first stack all bowed out and the outer pieces burnt. A valuable learning experience. Once I'd wrestled the band saw steel into a decent sized billet, I cut it up and stacked it with the leaf spring to weld them together. Below is the finished blade, I just have to put a handle on it. I've got some oak I cut about a year ago which should be dry enough by now. I'm going to do that this week, so hopefully I'll post some pictures in a few days.

http://imgur.com/a/5R8Bh

I'd probably think about some sort of acid etching to remove rust and scale. Sandblasting would be my 2nd choice.

I did try soaking it in some ferric chloride that I have. The places I could rinse with a towel came up nicely but there were still some places that I couldn't reach where the crap was obviously loose but still just sitting on the surface. Maybe I just didn't leave it long enough? I was a bit worried about potentially damaging the pieces. How long do you recommend leaving the pieces in acid?  

electrolytic de rusting if you have access to a car battery charger.

 

Otherwise soak overnight in household vinegar and thoroughly rinse in running water the next day.

oooooo, that sounds fun. How would I go about doing this? I have several car batteries available to me.

Hi all. I made these the other day to hopefully be a pair of bookends. At the time though, I didn't really think about how I would clean them up. As you can see from the picture, they're filthy. They've been sitting in my shop for the last few days after a couple of failed cleaning attempts. They aren't quite as bad as they look, for some reason my camera has accentuated all of the colours but they are pretty bad. What would be the best method for cleaning them, or any similarly difficult to clean pieces they might come out of my forge? Many thanks in advance.

Ok, cool. I was just making sure I wasn't missing a trick. Thanks for the info guys  :)

I've got a couple of kitchen knives in the works, and I've been thinking about the finished product and how it will interact with the acids in food. The blade is not made of stainless, so I was thinking that the acids might mark the blades. Would this happen? And if so is there anyway of protecting the steel from these effects? Many thanks in advance.

Nice! I really like the handle on the first one, wrapped around a mandrel?

I just had a bit of round bar of the appropriate size stuck in my vice and wrapped it around that.

I made a selection of pokers today. What does everyone think?

http://imgur.com/a/NYo54

I'm looking to buy a bench grinder to put a wire wheel and a cloth wheel on for cleaning and finishing stuff. I went into a local engineering shop and had a chat with the guy about them. He said that the manufactures of the machine I was looking at (a 500W machine) said that putting a cloth wheel and a wire wheel on it is not recommended as they would put too much strain on the motor and burn it out. Is this true? If so what sort of machine would you guys recommend for this type of job? Thanks in advance!

While not an expert by any means, I've welded quite a few damascus billets without any form of flux and I've had no problems at all. Admittedly, it's due to me being a lazy cheapskate rather than making a concious choice to go without flux, but the results have always been great so I've never been spurred into buying it to help with my welding. I use a coke forge at the moment but am working on building a gas forge. When that's complete I'll see if the same holds true for the gas forge.

I've been trying to push my skills recently and this is the latest outcome. By far the most complicated thing I have made to date. A few rough edges, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

And the useful information continues to flow. Looks like I've got a lot of reading to do, and I'm going to see if there is anywhere that does courses in my area. Thank you for all the advice, it is much appreciated!

Thanks for all the advice and cautions. I will definitely get some proper tuition on safety for it, and I will go for a new kit rather than the used kits I was looking at. A few people have recommended propane instead of acetylene, does this require any different gear or does it just use the same stuff?

I can help you if you need information. I teach Mechanical Maintenence class. I have lesson plans on OX-Ace classes with all the latest OSHA and approved information on the subject from Weld Star one of the suppliers of welding equipment. The lesson plan is about 95 pages long and I would be happy to send it to you if you send my a self addressed and postage paid padded enevelope.I would put $3.25 in stamps for the weight of the copies. The pages are 8 1/2 by 11 so get a padded envelope large enought to handle that.  

PM me

That is a very generous offer, but I live in the UK so that will jack the price of postage up a bit. Is there a digital version you can email me or link me to?

(I hope this the right place to post this. I couldn't see anywhere obvious that it fit in.)

Hi all!

I'm looking to get hold of some oxy acetylene gear for spot heating stuff and a bunch of other extremely useful things. The trouble is, I don;t really know that much about them. What sort of kit do I need for just heating metal? How much should I expect to pay? How much is gas? etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

Here is a little more in depth article about it for those that are interested. You will need to get your browser to translate it which is no problem if your using firefox or chrome. Not sure about other browsers but they probably do it as well. I haven't read all of it, it's pretty XXXX long, but you might be able to dig up some additional information.
http://baike.baidu.com/view/142504.htm

I thought you guys might find this interesting. I'm also curious as to whether anyone has made a sword of a similar composition before?

Wow, thanks for all the replies guys. I didn't expect it to generate this much interest! It sounds like there may be plenty of uses I can put it to, I'm glad I didn't override my magpie tendencies this time. The cast I have is some decorative pieces off some old sewing tables; the ones with the wheel and pedal. I'll post some pictures for everyone to see.

Some cast iron has recently fallen into my possession and I was curious whether or not this is of any use in the forge at all? Can it be turned into useful product or is there some use that it can be put to in it's current form? Many thanks in advance.

so she wears granny panties??

.....erm....yer I can't think of anything to say because I'm drooling over the pictures.

On a side note, I noticed you're in the UK and I would love to know where you source your metal from for something like this.

I was going to follow the blueprint for a gas forge that's on here but apparently the page is broken at the moment. This is my first build so I'm not really up on everything yet, I didn't know that the flux reacted with the blanket for instance. Not that I've ever used flux for my firewelding, I was always told its an unnecessary extravagance. I've never really had any problems welding so I've never bothered. Also that's more money
What sort of thing would you recommend I coat it with? On the off chance that I ever actually use flux I would like to avoid the cotton candy/water scenario.