My first post so hello to everyone, Intro:
Started forging a year ago, practiced it for a maximum of a dozen times, then the winter came and having no indoor possibilities I stopped.
I restarted again this weekend. Meanwhile I tried to gather some information.
I pretty much want to go through making as much as I can (especially tools: woodworking, metalworking, glass, stone etc.)
It's kind of difficult to find guidance (face to face) as very few people do this sort of thing in my city/country (Bucharest/Romania).
Still, fortunately I will probably be able to play with forging more than just in the weekends.
I'll stop here, as I intend to communicate a lot on this forum... many questions and hopefully much to share as I go along.
First attempt at forging:
Improvised a forge: refractory bricks on a metal foil base, a square pipe full of holes and a hairdryer fan connected to the socket through an adapter. - will detail in another post.
The forge works but can still be improved - it specially needs changes for particular projects.
And a railroad track improvised anvil.
Second attempt at forging:
Just experimenting with mild steel, flat, round and square stock... practicing turning/coiling, bending, flattening, punching, cutting, drawing out etc. mostly basic stuff.
Still have to try in future attempts:
Welding, hardening, tempering The "problem"/challenge:
I decided to try and make a draw-knife out of an old rusted file because:
1. I need a draw-knife.
2. I would go through the process of heat treating.
Haven't started working on the file yet (of fear of destroying it - question no.1: what would happen if I heat it to much - being a high carbon steel), instead I used a scrap piece of high carbon steel.
Hardening seems relatively simple (as in no problems so far), from what I gathered, simply put, you heat it up to the point when it looses its magnetism (seems to be a red - orange color) and then quench (I used water, not sure if it's OK, seemed alright).
The part that actually took me all day (literally) and with no result at the end was the tempering part.
I am really insistent on not using the oven, or a torch or heat-insulation (clay or others) for my first try but instead use the most rudimentary method (I'm thinking of the forge itself) AND THIS, well this has been and still is a mystery to me.
1. I thought that I will be able to get the temper by just putting the "file" on the fire on it's side and watch the colors(of course after cleaning it). Result: It generated "random" colors because of the non-regularity of the flame, higher flame resulted in the blade becoming all blue, smaller or less intense flame resulted in that, during same amount of time, it got yellow and in the end instead of a gradual pattern from back to blade I actually got a Mosaic of colors, mostly blue.
2. I tried using another piece of metal (tried thin, thick, mild, high C), which I heated up to red hot and then took it of the fire and placed the file over it. Result: as soon as I took it out of the fire it started to cool, also the small imperfections in the levelness(=> no contact to file) of the support metal resulted in no temper color. I tried even getting mild steel to orange-yellow hot and still no result.
3. Variation on 2 after heating the support metal I left it in the forge and placed the file over it. Of course that the heat from the forge generated the result from 1. I also tried simply heating up the forge and then placing the support metal over the fire in the forge. This time because I didn't envelop the metal in charcoal it never got hot enough to generate the temper colors on the file.
4. I also tried playing with the fire bricks, creating different heat areas trying to control the distribution of heat in order to only affect the spine of the future draw-knife.
As in almost all the other examples the very small imperfections in the heat distribution (caused by cracks or dents in the bricks) resulted in a very non uniform temper pattern. Main question: how can I get a uniform, full length, one shot, progressive temper color pattern on a longer blade (particularly: draw-knife ~ 10 inch) using a forge and watching the colors run.
Hopefully tomorrow I will also take pictures of the setup and every method I tried (more or less skillfully) and share. Even if I couldn't use so far the methods maybe someone else will correct them or learn from them.
Observation:
- for forging colors you need darkness (unfortunately I cans only use the outdoors to forge so it's a little bit cumbersome)
- for the tempering colors you need light (I cannot see a thing inside the forge I actually need to make the fire more into the sunlight)
Those two don't mach up until now.
Probably for someone with more experience this might seem silly or even foolish... (sorry if it really is) but by just experimenting with it and having almost no experience I kind of got stuck looking at the forge. Tomorrow is another day... hopefully I will come up with something. Anyway I plan on starting the day by actually shaping the draw-knife... this way at least I will get something done.
Sorry for the long post, being my first one I kind of wanted to say more, I will keep it concise from now on. Thanks,
Mihai
