Gerald Boggs

Rats, not available for viewing, except in Britain :-(

My experience has been that if I use Twenty Mule Borax and do nothing to neutralize* the iron that has been covered with the borax, then in time, it will leech a white power. Now this doesn't happen just around the joint, but everywhere the borax has been**. So if I weld two scrolls together, then about two inches each way from the weld will show this leeching. This leeching one of the reasons so many substitutes to borax have been come into being. *One method of solving this, is to wash the weld in water with a bit of baking soda. If you have ever used a blacking agent, then you've done this or something similar. **I don't understand the science, but I imagine that at forging temperature, the borax is absorbed into the surface of the metal. Later as it's exposed to air and moisture (probably moisture is a very important part of this) the borax leeches out.

Frosty, that's what I'm thinking of doing. In particular, if used alone, does boric acid welds white up after a period of time. Because that's the only issue I have with Twenty Mules borax. Maybe some of the guilds would get in on this and do a series of blind testing. I'm going to Dan Boone's Pasture party and the BGOP's Spring Fling this year. I could get mixes ready and see if folks would participate in a blind test.

Jimbob, I haven't actually mixed my own stuff, but I've heard of people that do. Some started because they felt the old cherry heat worked a lot better then the new. If you visit here, you can see the mix for new Cherry Heat and EZ Weld are both about 35-45 percent steel chips. Superior Flux & MFG. Co. Mr. Neilson, it's not so much which to use, but why mix the two. What's the benefit? Anti-Borax No. 2 is a mix of both. Why? While we all cross our fingers when we forge weld, or at least I do :-) It's not luck or magic that makes it happen. So if I'm doing something, I like to understand the WHY along with the HOW.

Come on guys, this should be a subject of interest to every smith on this forum. I started it to try and get us thinking and talking about flux and why we use it. If one is welding mild steel to mild steel, one doesn't even need to use flux to weld. So why use flux at all? Well for one thing, it can be a big help. It helps overcome any problems in the fire that would interfere with the weld. Like I posted, if I'm going to have problems with a weld, it'll be when I've a audience. Using flux helps me overcome the stage fright :-) But back to the question first asked, why mix borax and boric acid together? Why use sand and borax? For the first I have no answer, if you visit the web site of Superior flux, Superior Flux & MFG. Co. you'll find lots of different mixes of flux, all claiming the same results. Maybe it's true and one works as well as the other. So back to the start of the thread, why mix them? I not suggesting that its wrong to mix them, just I don't understand why For the second, I have a idea and it goes back to the "Olde days" Back in the day, most smiths were using wrought iron, which with the silica already in it, didn't need flux, it was built in. So the only time one need to use flux was when welding iron to high carbon steel i.e. an axe. Sand was readily available and this is important, inexpensive. We often forget how much was done by barter back then. Hard money was hard to come by and borax would have cost money. As borax became more readily available, it started to find it's way into the shops, but still it's hard to break old habits and rather then simply use borax, it was mixed with the sand to make it go further. Remember, this is a guess. But a guess based on understanding how much was done, not because it was the best way, but because it was the best way they could afford. So here it is Monday morning, anybody with ideas?

Borax and Boric acid: I'm still a bit confused, what has happened to the Borax after it's been turned into Boric Acid that mixing the two as a flux, is an improvement over using each alone. So far Mark has come up with the "makes sense" explanation on why to mix the two. The alkaline gets neutralized by the acid. Which would explain why some mix Borax and Ammonium chloride together as a flux. If one looks around, you can find Boric Acid listed as the main ingredient of the Anti-Borax fluxes. Which would lead one to conclude that Boric Acid alone works pretty good as a flux. I already know that Borax does the same. What I'm, as I already have wrote, still fuzzy on, is the mixing of the two. Woody, I fall into that catagorey. 80% of the time, I don't use any flux and get forge welds that are just fine. It's when I'm doing something tricky (or someoone is watching) that I like the extra help.

That's why I wrote "I heard" :-) Could you go into greater detail on this?

What I understand about fluxing. Borax: When using Borax, as I understand, you get two, possible three effects. One: The borax shields the iron from the oxygen in the forge, therefore preventing oxidation (scale). Two: It dissolves the scale already present, making it easy for the scale to squirt out during the first blows of a well formed scarf. Three: I've heard that borax also lowers the melting temperature of iron, therefore making it easier to reach a welding heat. Sand: Sand only does one thing, it acts as a flux, shielding the iron from oxidation, but does not dissolve oxidation already present. Iron filings: Iron filings allow one to see that the metal has reached welding heat without having to peek at the metal. The filings will start to spark first, therefore letting one know that the pieces are ready to weld, long before the pieces themselves would start to burn. So far I'm pretty good on understanding. Where it starts to get fuzzy for me, is when we start to mix fluxes together. First, why mix sand and borax together as a flux? Second, why add Boric acid to the mix? I looked up Boric acid on Wikipedia and if I'm correct in my understanding, Boric acid is made from borax. If this is true, what does boric acid do, that borax doesn't and if boric acid works better then borax, why mix the two?

No NeatGuy it isn't. This is a photo of a anvil made in 1784. It's from a book on Persian steel. Most of the stuff shown is pretty old.

Here's a anvil for 1784 It was in a book titled "Persian Steel, the Tanavoli Collection"