Steve Sells

I have, but building and fire codes, and their enforcement is local specific, so not a lot or room for on-line help. call your local office.

but we cant harden what isnt there. read the sticky's about what hardening is and you will understand why.

The question did not state if they were interested in things like L-6 that forges fine, just watch temps because if its too low will shatter, ; stainless steels; or German Silver, an alloy of mainly Nickel and copper...

its covered a bit in the knife stickies, Main thing is to keep out air, as the nature of stainless is the same chrome oxides that stop rusting will also stop welding. Fluoride based flux helps, but its very toxic too, good luck

I got a chance to read some of them at JeremyK's hammer-in, Loved what little I was able to read. They appeared well worth the price, but I was sadly unable to read much with all the things going on then.

This does NOT hold up in US Court, if you want it safe, register it with copyright office of your federal Gov't.

I have the book of 5 rings, but it was still a chunk of wood, while the oar made for a good weapon, it was not a sword, I would have assumed Thomas would have known the difference ;)

I have to disagree, No level of swordsman can transform a broom handle into a sword. Make it a weapon yes; a sword, no. To quote a past teacher of mine, "one can't polish a xxxx, and expect to end up with anything other than a piece of dung"

welcome to I Forge Iron. we have a few makers here, but its always best to start small, and work your way up.

I hope they pay ya for overtime, Stay safe, no matter how bad ya want to get home, don't take any risks to get home, cause if ya do we will see its posted here to embarrass you forever :D

Bonjour Welcome to I Forge Iron

shallow hardening means a lot more hardening difference with a large cross section as with a hammer or anchor, than in thin cross sections as with a blade, its all relative.

The ABS test is designed to show one knows how to control the heat treat of the chosen steel. Nothing wrong with making a blade to flex 90 degrees, but it is not needed for most. I rarely make a sword too hard at the edge anyway. On a side note: Very few people are able to sharpen a 3 foot long razor safely, even fewer are able to use a razor sharp sword safely.

The reason the bolts are cracking is that the weld heat brought the weld area above AC3 and it re hardened part of it upon cooling. With out a proper tempering of the newly formed martensite it will be very brittle. This is a reason for post heating of the weld zone. You also have to remember if you did not entirely reheat and re harden the bolt you have uneffected areas, and the middle zone to account for also. Welding nut to bolt is only 100% predictable for mild steel bolts, not the harder grades. Read up on heat treating and you will understand more about this effect. Most people do not understand this unless they work in an area that deals in heat treating.

Looks to me like a suitable punishment for apprentices that foul the fire pot.

Welcome to I Forge Iron, I think we meet at the IBA meeting/hammer-in a few months ago. Maybe I will see you a 2 weeks for our next one, at the steam show here.

Knee mail sent, I have been laid off 13 months here, Lucky I have side jobs or...... and this IS the correct place to post your request .

I try to edit the larger pics into thumbs to help with the Dial up up problem, but I sometime mess up an lose a picture, even have gotten Emails complaining that they want large pics for "detail" as if they never learned that they can click on the thumb for larger pics if they wish? There are many on Dial up. The staff does have a life outside of the forum and downloading and resizing and re-uploading all the photos takes time and it may take a few days. Sorry maybe we can get everyone to stop posting so large a pics on photobucket and linking them here. If they would just use this forums Upload photo feature at the bottom of the post area they are already using, it would make it easier for all of us, as that places a thumb at teh end of the post, and allows for larger viewing as needed. I have been informed about people that can not get a page to load, as they time-out because of so many over size photo's.

it was Mild, I am sending him some of my stock of 5160H from security steel. After I performed a normal hardening process and getting nothing, I over heated to 1600F and soaked about 5 minutes then quenched into cold water slack tub, after it cooled to the touch, I placed the bar in vise and hit with my 6# hammer, it bent a little. thats it ... so it is only MILD

My idea of fair price, has shocked a few that seem to think $200 for a Viking blade is over priced. so my quote of $3k for a pattern welded Type X nearly gave them a heart attack. Reasonable Price is in the eye of the check writer...

Welcome. Depending on what part of Ohio you are in, My local group meets near Ft Wayne on the first Saturday of the month, east of New Haven, off US 24.

Welcome the site. Plenty of smiths in your neck of the woods. try to hook upi with a local group and read all ya can here and you will have a good beginning.

Welcome to I Forge Iron, the owner frowns on use or abbreviation of language that isn't correct for children, so please be aware in future posts, as staff will tag ya for it some day. As for getting a forge, it doesn't have to be elaborate, it can be a hole in the ground with small bellows to force air through the charcoal ( Not briquette, but hard wood lump). good luck getting started, to help I suggest reading some of the getting started topics located off the web site home page.

Welcome to I Forge Iron, we have a live knife chat every Friday night 10pm eastern time., as well as the regular 24/7 chat room, stop in sometime.