thingmaker3

If I wanted to make a living at it? I'd spend the money on tuition for marketing class and small business admin class.

I think if my wife sees this, I'll get locked in the smithy until she has some! Nice idea. Did you split the decorated end prior to scrolling?

Like this: :)

We often hear "my grandfather was a smith" but how often do we hear "my grandfather taught me how to be a clever and artistic smith?" I congratulate you on your fine talented family, Uri! Truly they are your greatest work.

Yep. Negligable carbon: http://www.matweb.com/search/datasheet.aspx?matguid=a92dedfe89444fb8a1db4376a3bc755c&ckck=1

IF the bearing race is 52100, heat to nonmagnetic and quench in oil. Repeat twice more. Temper as needed for the type of tool you are making. If the bearing race is something else, do something else.

A fair price for cast iron anvils is $290.00 per metric ton.

Whether you have to heat treat it depends on what kind of material properties you need. Are you making roses with spiffy anodized pink & blue colors? No heat treat needed. Are you making support thingies to hold up your heavy doo-dads? Heat treat might be needed there. So... whatcha makin'?

IIRC, the Hollywood prop masters carve out their aluminum swords from alloy 122 bars. They also use rubber and/or plastic, depending on what happens to the "sword" and the stunt-person in the scene.

My experience with Chinese hammers is similar to other folk here. Heads are okay, but handles suck and/or are mounted improperly. I forget who said it, but any Chinese hammer should be considered a kit - some re-assembly required. So, add your standard shop rate for making and mounting a new handle to the price of the "inexpensive" hammer for total price. ;)

4140 welded to another chunk of steel to make a total of 100 pounds. Assuming we only need to cool a quarter of that "fast enough," we're still talking 10 BTU per second or more. I don't know of any oil capable of that. (Doesn't mean there ain't one, of course.)

Comparing a hammer to a knife... One has a great deal of surface area per unit mass. And much less mass. Other has much less surface area per unit mass. And much more mass. Cooling rate it a given media will be much slower for a hammer than for a knife. Try quenching it in water instead.

Blacksmith from the PNW who can carry 150# under ONE arm? Must have been Geronimo Bayard. Oops. Okay. Must have been a fictitious person with purely coincidental resemblance to Geronimo Bayard.

"PB2" is a designation for a phosphor bronze alloy. "LG2" and "AG2" are bronze alloy designations as well. Not saying that's what you have, of course. What color is the stuff you have?

Not so big of an increase, really. Quite small compared to movie tickets or soup: http://hubpages.com/hub/Life-75-Years-Ago-Compared-To-Now If you don't want those nasty old fines, you can send them to me...

duh! Just had me a revalation. It's much less to do with how fast the hammer descends & a whole lot to do with how fast the hammer gets slowed down by the hot steel!! Probably was obvios to most of you.

I am sure (very sure) that I will be happy to see the results of your and Connor's experiments. I am sure I have read of "ferrosilicon stringers" or "ferrosilicate stringers" or some such in WI (as the defining quality of WI) and will check my source when I have time to spend on such endeavors. In the interrum, please do not let my concerns or questions slow or delay your experiments. :)

I'm sure it is NOT. Slag is not silicon, it is ferrosilicon. Sand is also not silicon, it is silica. Just to be thourough, sand is not slag. Thank you for the links to reading material! I shall enjoy going through them!

I'm not a chemist either. Closest I got was to marry a chemist's daughter. I also hope I'm not coming off as discouraging - I'd really like to see someone pull off a hobby scale puddling furnace. But they'll only succeed if they play by Mother Nature's rules. The reaction for ferrosilicon starts with reducing silicate to silicon: SiO2 + C > Si + CO2 There's some calcium involved, too. Then the iron descends through the silicon, dragging it toward the bottom of the blast furnace or bloomery furnace. (This is why no stringers occur when molten glass sits on top of molten crucible steel.) When mills make H-13 or some of the S series steels or 300 series stainless, they don't add sand. They add ferrosilicon. As previously noted, molten steel is at a higher temperature than our average puddling furnace.

You'll need a blast furnace for that.

The really funny thing is the opening bid is also $410.

Sand is silicon dioxide, not ferrosillicon. You wouldn't put chlorine gas and sodium metal on your eggs, would you?

In the actual process, the stuff with the lowest melting point, the white cast iron, would stay liquid. The stuff with the highest melting point, the WI, would precipitate. Any carbon would rapidly diffuse out into the atmosphere. Mild steel has a much higher melting temp than CI - by hundreds of degrees F. Iron and mild steel are just a smidge apart on that scale. Your temperature controls going to be that tight? - also... Tell me again how you plan to get the ferrosilicate into it? Ain't none in mild steel, you know. Plenty of it in white cast iron, though. With no source of ferrosilicate, you'll only decarburise the mild steel into milder steel. Won't be "pure iron" because it will have manganese in it. Won't be WI because it won't have ferrosilicate.

Rival schmival. The Turks would have cut the Nihonjin asunder like reeds. And the Turks later upgraded to sabers. Sorry for the rant. I'll go away now.

Good idea. Occurs to me that a line on the anvil in addition & one might use this trick for punching as well as bending or setting.