Steve Sells

Borax is not a flux for copper or its alloys, wrong temps for one thing. Sal Ammoniac is a good choice for copper, but it is not needed for this application.

Cut not fold, clean clean then clean again.

For patterning, if our welds are good, any repose technique will work, hot or cold! but remember cold it will work harden,you WILL feel it start to get hard, STOP then, do not hammer even one blow more. We must occasionally heat to red, and quench to soften non ferrous metals. Also drilling for a birdseye, grinding slots for a ladder all work. Even twists if you are careful not to over work, remember the work hardening IS a metal stress.

yes but get a blower. i need one to heat up wood to get steel red hot. so i assume you need one for welding.

Knee mail sent Collin.

There is much information in the Sticky about this at the top of this page. please read it all, as its no joke, it can kill you.

if it isnt burnt, normalize many times should reduce the grain back to usable size. try it !

There are sticky's on proper ways to heat treat in the knife section, with links to references, and so there are more links in those, over 200 links all totaled...

Also by quenching such a very high temperature, you have created mostly Plate Martensite, rather than lathe, so it will be very brittle no matter how much tempering, compared to a proper temp. quench.

Read and try again. Never give up, never surrender!

After first successful weld, I then made the mistake of flattening it quite a bit, and then trying to fold the flattened billet in half, this all at weld temp, however the surfaces were now not so flat and dirty, and even though I fluxed it still did not weld.

don't have to be a blade, just that Martensite colors more. If you are worried about it being too hard, then temper at higher temps. but Hardened will have more contrast

MOD alert, we are happy to give Dad his own log in, actually we prefer to keep them separate, rather than continue the issue Frosty just mentioned.

please set up separate accounts. If you have trouble Glenn who is the forum owner, will assist you.

Here they are. They are crude and rough but I know what needs done on the next ones.

I forge weld a lot of damascus billets. I buy my borax by the 3 pound box. It lasts me a few months.

25# will get wet(wetter?) before you use even a portion of it.

Hair dryers work well. best if you don't waste energy using the heat settings, as it only overloads/heats up the dryer. Just use air setting.

post 1
there are some members that just do there best to chase members away from iforge iron why is that, do you think that this site is only for you the man said it was a wild guess just leave it at that
post 2
it is not removing someone i am talking about it is making people feel abused here in fact when it is all said and done we still are not real sure what the mc means on railroad spikes do we?

I will stick with my 12 steps, Works for me, and Dr bob.

please explain. do oy mean use the mig to hold the pc's in place for forge welding ?

funny how someone would think that, when as staff we can just remove a problem person.

Mods are servants to IFI not rulers, but we have a job to keep information flowing smoothly. When a person asks questions they have no idea if a responder is an experienced smith, or a person just posting to see their own names. So we try to explain to them how to post here, when they don't listen, or read anything for themselves, then we have have to use other methods to resolve problems. Not all members are privy to all the issues here, so its understandable when someone misunderstands.

not to high-jack.... but when I tested my new shops ventilator, a 22" fan mounted in a copula in the roof, I smoke bombed the place, and got a reading of 84ppm. then turned on the exhaust fan, and hit stop watch. 20 seconds to clear air. I am sure that a zero reading was sooner but I was not watching that, I was looking at stop watch and smoke cloud. I was impressed it cleared out so fast, in normal use I have never triggered anything above 0 ppm CO.

As Ptree said its prevention we should focus on. I just included a back up plan. Please stay safe

now I know where to look that steel up thanks

try reading through the forum posts. here are some threads about flux
http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/f21/borax-flux-10872/
http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/f21/borax-boric-acid-sand-9868/

all this is in the knife sticky's here. Read and be enlightened.

lol stuffed animals are for where I don't have a ground fire LOL amusing mental imagery there Warren :)

Damascus Mike, I see 2 posts stating spec's and you post a wild guess? how is that going to help?

If you would spend as much time reading post here as you do making so many yourself, you might learn something. Please stop posting gibberish, and read a few of the existing posts, you will be surprised what is listed here.

I heard they are going to merge, and call the company Fed-UPs

L is not not always for lead also the metal ID posted is not ANSI,

Where are you? in your user control panel you can post a country.

Low layers are strange.... I like the look of higher layer count blades, but since people prefer the ones with less layers, (aka less work for me) I make them .. its their xall, as I want them to buy.