Chinobi

yea it was pretty rough trying to hold onto the flatter/smaller one with scrolling tongs, fortunately the larger one i was able to work while it was still on the end of its parent stock, however, despite my careful planning i still managed to start it upside down, which i think is what made forging it so much more complicated. i wish i had thought to treat it as forging two at the same time connected by the chin! got some good advice on cold inlay from some of the staff at the forge to add to the list of stuff to try :D excellent and very informative diagram earlier in the thread too by the way, thank you for sharing that with us!

no, i left it 'dry', and the skull was heavily scaled going into it. i plan to test boric acid the next time i try, regular borax has been giving me inconsistent results at home.

took a shot at this over the weekend, pretty rough though. disregard the smaller one looking like it was in a fight with the pavement, i tried to get some copper to melt into the depressions but it ended up flaking off when i started to grind it down. larger of the two was off a piece of 1/2" square, the little one was from a cutoff of 1/4" bar, starting size was probably about 3/4"x1/2" or therabouts. looking forwars to applying lessons learned and trying again in the near future :D

cold work can separate even properly bonded layers if it is work hardening and you are hammering on edge, but it will certainly also point out the layers that didnt bond :) got any pics of the run?

that may be true of special alloys and non ferrous metals, but rust on iron will not form a skin and stop at that. The rust is very porous and will continue to corrode beneath the surface layer and so on until the metal has been consumed (fast forward a few years of course).

remember: only use pre-1984 pennies, if you go that route :) that zinc core is bad news on all fronts.

definitely on the endangered species list out here (south, but still pacific) and frequently the ones that do come up are far too pricey =/ or maybe im just picky :)

i think thats tool #1 in the 'what do i need to start blacksmithing' sticky in the general subforum :) or close to the top at the very least...

as Albert said nickels are a homogenous alloy, not clad like quarters and dimes. stacking and fusing a bunch of nickels will just give you a significantly thicker nickel :) hard to guess what they scale-like formation you observed without pictures. i have not had nickel scale up and flake off on me, but most of my experience is with wire and lower temps. the temperature of fusion will vary wildly depending on the specific combination of metals used, and trying to bond nickel to nickel would be pretty close (if not at) the melting temperature of nickel, which is pretty bloody high (something like 1450 C if memory serves). also, unless you have access to an accurately controllable (read electric kiln with a good metering system) or a pyrometer i wouldnt split hairs about exact temperatures. look at where the layers meet and watch for a kind of flash or a shiny/sweaty looking stripe to form in between, thats the indicator that a bond has formed. bear in mind, it is quite subtle and pretty difficult to see. you will probably end up taking your stack of quarters out at the point that you realize the copper is leaking out from the other side before you actually notice anything like what you are looking for :ph34r: thats kinda how it worked (ok, works) for me. i would avoid involving steel at this stage, it is much harder than the other metals, making working the billet after it bonds very difficult with hand tools. i have a few designs that require the use of steel and copper, but i plan to leave it pretty much as stacked because i dont think ill be able to work it well. search around on the site for 'patina' or 'patination' or otherwise the finish/polish section to see what you can do with heat, chemicals, etching and combinations of the three to change the color of your metals. brass and copper is a fairly standard combination, supposed to be pretty easy, and both metals are similarly malleable and anneal readily, giving the billet good working properties. perosonally i am still messing around with quarters, because as far as raw material prices go it is highly efficient, and even more so when you realize that quarters are precut to the same shape! they are also pretty forgiving in terms of cleaning. im not recommending you just use any old scratched/slagged/oxidized quarter, but they dont need to be so diligently prepared as new sheet metal does. out of curiousity, what kind of equipment are you currently using? forge? hand held torch? torque plates? large rock?

you will have to inspect the edges and work it a bit before you can really say with confidence that the joins are complete, iv squished many a stack of quarters only to have them fall apart into a pile of significantly thinner, blacker quarters :angry: dont consolidate it so much in one go that you start to see the sides bulge out and split the seams at the edges.

dont forget that if the legs or arms end up too long you can still cut some off to make it the right size, doesnt work so well going the other way :)

Are they asking for the entire process to be historically accurate? if they dont mind using modern equipment outside of the mold itself i have had no trouble casting sterling with one of these http://www.fdjtool.com/ProductInfo/22.2E_791.aspx i have not used a tufa mold myself, but the first thing i thought of was to make the depression of the mold deeper than you need it to be and control the thickness of the pour by premeasuring the quantity of metal in the melt, i would be edgy trying to pour into a 1/8" deep mold without slop, especially if i had to pour it 6 or so inches long. you also never mentioned the intended width of the piece, but assuming its not some ungodly wide wrist shingle you shouldnt need a terribly large crucible.

i believe the conventional wisdom is to build with soft brick with a liner of hard brick on the bottom for wear and tear and some kind of coating on the interior, i wont embarrass myself further by recommending things i have never used though. skim the rest of the subforum, there are many other threads for exactly this question. check out also zoellerforge.com for more information on various small DIY gasser builds and the requisite materials. good luck!

iv gotta side with Bentiron on this one, i would ditch the antimony and pick up some sterling silver from wherever you can nearby, or order some online. I have only read about cuttlefish casting, i use delft clay because it is almost entirely re-useable and i prefer to shape a model of the object rather than carve a negative. definitely make sure you have a lot of ventilation, outside comes to mind :) unless i am overlooking some information you did not mention what you have on hand to melt your metal *in*, make sure you use a sound crucible avoid any easily preventable equipment failures. i would consider a handle mandatory for safe and easy pouring. it takes some time to get the metal and crucible up to melting temp so be prepared to heat it for several minutes and then be ready to pour as soon as the metal is liquid, keep the flame on the metal in crucible as you pour to keep the temp up and prevent it from seizing up in the sprue. once the metal is liquid there is no need to delay, continuing to heat after that point is when you start getting into metal vapor territory. flip through the myriad of youtube videos concerning casting, there are a lot of good ones for the various types of casting and the related steps. i can recommend FDJ tools for casting supplies, thats where i got my kit. at the very least its a good springboard to see the equipment involved. http://www.fdjtool.com/Category/1938_1/Delft_Clay_Supplies.aspx check out also the sticky at the top of the foundry and casting subforum, Dan has laid out a lot of very good information related to casting there. it leans more towards large scale projects but the principles and practices are basically the same. Good luck and post pics!

heh, looks more like one of those as-seen-on-tv type devices to help you fold or iron laundry :blink: i would probably be more inclined to use it as a pre-shaped steel target for the shooting range ;)

empirically i find that good enough for me tends to fall somewhere between 'it resembles the designed form or function' and 'i really shouldnt have kept trying to fix that', and as i continue to practice i try to narrow that window as much as possible. i struggle the most with stopping myself before i wreck it trying to adjust some minutia that most other people will never even register. then again, i havnt actually sold any of my work in a number of years, i tend to just make things for my own satisfaction or to give as gifts, so i try to satisfy myself that it is done well enough to the point that further fiddling will in reality become detrimental.

Not enough time left in lunch to try and shuttle photos from phone to desktop but some of my favorite hobbies include: photography making beef jerky (and other dried goods) cooking shooting (.308 win, 12ga, .22 presently) silversmithing/jewelry and of course blacksmithing :) i have done home brew beer with a few friends, but never on my own/for myself.

i am in a similar expiremental stage with the process so apply salt as needed: i dont know what your setup is but while you rotate and flip the billet in the forge make sure you do not actually remove it from the fire until you are convinced that the plates have bonded. from the oxidation patterns in the first photo it almost looks like the plates were not totally flat, there appear to be areas where they were almost bonded and other areas where the oxidation is almost complete. i have seen similar patterns on my pieces and when closely inspected they were warped. something i learned when i learned to forge weld is to consolidate the stack gently, rather than sledging it together with a lot of power. this will also prevent liquid and near liquid phase metal from getting squished out from between more solid layers. try again without the iron until you get more of a feel for the process, starting with a simpler combination between two metals makes learning faster and less frustrating. plus, when you do get a bond on an iron/copper/brass stack the iron will make it more challenging to actually forge the billet because it is so much harder than the copper and brass. definitely read through some of the other threads in the section as well, they hold quite a lot of useful information!

you remember any specifics on the hits in Santa Barbara? (thats where i work, i havnt seen anything in SB on CL in a few months of skimming) there was (is?) a guy in santa rosa with minimum 1 hay budden 150 or 167#'r but hes asking 800$ for it if memory serves, he had a photo up of a forklift pallete with 5-6 various sizes of anvil on it and his add said 'parsing out shop', just too far. i was very tempted to jump on a 250# fisher eagle that was also about 800$, which does fall closer to the 'good deal' price range, but it would be like godzilla at my place :(

Keep your eyes open on craigslist, i have seen several come up as i am just 60 miles north of you and doing the same thing. trouble is 'reasonably priced' is somewhat of a myth when searching online. i have seen a few nice anvils pop up that i think would fall under the 'fair price' category of 3-4$/lb but still far too expensive to warrant pursuit. i also wouldnt really even consider buying new unless there is something very specific you want out of it, used and even lightly damaged anvils seem to go for lower prices yet are still fully functional (damage dependent of course) happy hunting, and if you come across a 2 for 1 drop me a line :D

It was fantastic! Mark is a very engaging and attentive instructor and the information he taught us probably saved me years of using my forehead as a hammer and helped make a lot of sense out of what i was reading in his fundamentals book. It was also great feedback as he would patrol the shop and point out errors in your swing and technique. We also learned how to fabricate our own struck tooling (chisels, punches and the like) and heat treat them, which opens a lot of doors too. Plus the wizard bottle openers make excelent christmas gifts :D I spoke with some of the staff there and they said they were hoping to have Mark teach another class (didnt say on what) later in the year, my memory fades but i want to say in spring, so keep your eyes open! i definitely recommend trying to get in on that, it will take a pretty severe conflict to keep me from attending his future classes!

I am up in Ventura, about 60 miles north of LA, also on Dave's recommendation i checked out Adam's Forge and have since been there several times and was fortunate to be able to participate in a 5 day fundamentals class taught by Mark Aspery in early november of last year (2012). Highly recommend checking them out, especially if you are under- or poorly equipped at home.

Thanks Bentiron, still having trouble getting stacks to bond consistently all the way through, but getting better :) and thanks to whichever mod helped with the photo posting

Managed to get out to the forge again a few times recently, got some pics of the stuff i tried out. expiremented with inlaying copper into steel, still fine tuning the process for better control without the copper too heavily, polished up and heat blued that one to see how it looked. got a stack of 10 or 12 quarters to bond, drew it out into a stubby bar, trimmed it and cut it for a split cross on the band saw. next time i want to try a quarter twist through the overlap zone to see if i can get the cut parallel to the layer grain like you can see on the arms of the cross, instead of having the vertical stripes like the center the two sticks are my first drawn out bar of quarters twisted and then sawn in half, the one on the left i cleaned up with some sandpaper and heat oxidized briefly to bring out the pattern.

thanks for the tip wind, dont think i can use that to clean up parts for mokume due to plastic'y residue being left afterwards which would necessitate a secondary cleaning, but i will definitely keep that in mind for other small part applications! :)