MattBower

I think you're overthinking this. The dimensions of the flare aren't that critical. And as far as I know the only purpose of the flare is to serve as a flame holder; I don't think it's an efficiency issue, at least not the typical blacksmith's burner flare. And good castable is a good bit more heat resistant than steel. The 1:12 taper applies to the diameter -- a 1" increase in diameter per 12" in length. So if the external diameter of your form is (for example) 1" at the narrow end, 2" further toward the big end it's 2.167".

Inside the forge it really isn't necessary. But if you're going to turn a male form, use that to mold your castable to shape to get the right taper inside the forge. Just to clarify, are you planning to use your male flare/mandrel to form the burner tube itself into a flare, or are you planning to use it to make separate flares that'll slide onto the outside of a burner tube?

The method mentioned is khuftgari, also called koftgari. There are probably several other alternative spellings. Basically you score the steel surface to raise a bunch of extremely fine burrs, press your silver into that (I think you can also hammer it in with a small hammer and punch), then burnish the surface. Here's a demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIBpSBVDca4

Is it a sharp mill file? Even if the BSB is air hardening, I very much doubt that the drain snake is. So I don't expect those layers will have hardened through normalizing. (Carbon migrates pretty quickly during forge welding, but the other elements that make a steel air-hardening basically don't migrate. They do in theory, but it happens so slowly that it's meaningless for practical purposes.)

You could probably make RR spikes work for this, but you'd be forcing a square peg into a round hole. You'd save yourself a lot of pain and suffering by spending a few dollars on mild steel stock that's close to the dimensions you need. (I am envisioning a set of lifting tongs with reins of 3 feet or more. If that's not what you have in mind, then this comment may not apply.) That said, I agree with Tim's assessment. This strikes me as one of those, "if you have to ask, you're not quite ready" questions. I also agree that casting the tongs out of brass would not be a great idea. Brass isn't really an ideal material for this purpose, and casting them would be a whole lot more trouble than the minimal forging you'd need to do if you started with appropriately sized steel stock.

Even if many of them are cast, the patterns took plenty of time and skill to prepare. Beautiful stuff.

Elastic deformation. The maximum point to which you can deform the piece before it will no longer return to shape is the elastic limit. After that you're in the plastic deformation range. (These are my rough, layman's definitions of terms that engineers and scientists define much more precisely.)

I sure do! Dang. Getting old(er) sucks. I'll fix that.

And this is why I prefer to avoid the term "Damascus." See Thomas's response. Pattern welding/piling/layering has no connection, that I know of at any rate, with the blades of yore coming out of the Middle East. I feel as if, by referring to pattern welded steel as "Damascus," I help perpetuate the confusion.

Very nice work. It has artistic elements reminiscent of some of Brent Bailey's stuff -- which I mean as a high compliment.

I didn't forget air, I just didn't include it because it's generally only relevant to deep hardening tool steels. (The OP's question is implicitly about quenchants for hardening.) If we want to exhaust all the options, we should also be talking about molten salts -- they're not just for austenitizing, you know! -- polymer quenchants, high pressure gases like pure nitrogen, and all sorts of fancy stuff that has no bearing on general shop use. (I actually deleted several paragraphs from my first post when I realized I was going way beyond what he asked.) On the plate quench, I'll mention that I managed to quench crack a piece of O1 this past weekend by working a thin section on a cold anvil, then letting it cool to ambient. The next piece got slow cooled on the coal/coke pile next to the fire, and then tempered by sitting on top of the fire for a while.

Frank has it, but I'll expand a little on what he said. Order of speed of quench, from fastest to slowest, goes something like Super Quench--brine--water--oil. The speed of water varies inversely with temperature; hotter water is a slower quench compared to colder. Speed of oil varies directly with temperature, up to a point: hotter oil is a faster quench, compared to the same oil at a lower temperature. But beyond a certain point, heating oil slows it down. That point is going to vary depending on the particular oil, but it's likely to be somewhere north of 150 degrees F or so. The speed of an oil quench also depends on a host of other factors, with one important one being viscosity. Generally speaking, lower viscosity oils make faster quenchants than higher viscosity oils. Oils can provide a huge range of quench speeds. As for a general shop quenchant, it depends what sort of work you're doing. If you're only working with 10xx steels in relatively thin cross-sections, you can probably get by with clean water (distilled is good) and a fast oil. (Warm canola is pretty fast, and has a fairly nice cooling curve. But a good quality commercial quenching oil won't go rancid like canola, and will last much longer in use.) If you add a variety of tool steels into the mix, all bets are off. And if you want to be able to significantly harden mild steel, you're going to need some Super Quench as well. (However, just about any tool that you could make from mild steel hardened in Super Quench, you could make better with a properly hardened and tempered medium or high carbon steel. Good steels aren't hard to come by.)

I suppose that'd work, too, Thomas!

Have you thought about trying to find a silent (or not-so-silent) partner, Larry? You have the know-how, but not the funds. There are definitely folks out there with the funds, but not the know-how.

Damascus certainly isn't wrong, but the term is so shrouded in myth and misunderstanding that I would rather avoid it if possible. I do make an exception for cable damascus, though. "Cable pattern weld" seems too forced and cumbersome.

Useful. Thanks, Phil!

Yeah, gas grills usually run on a preset regulator that's set for a comparatively low pressure (now that I think about it, it may be less than 1 psi). The turkey fryers I have seen run higher pressures and are adjustable, but I think 30 psi would probably be too high even for those.

Thanks, Larry. I am glad to learn that Grant's legacy (a small part of it, anyway) will be preserved in this way. But I will always especially appreciate my OCP tools that were made by the hands of the man himself.

For what it's worth, a lot of the old pipe hawk bowls were forged/turned separately and then brazed on. That approach might help somewhat with alignment, at the cost of complicating things.

Well, 440C is a blade steel. It's stainless. Surprising that they don't know what their blades are made of, though. They do imply that they have "carbon steel" (i.e., non-stainless) blades as well.

I'm not Canadian and I have no experience with these guys, but Google turns up this page: http://www.on-the-edge.ca/103supplies-pg.htm

Doc, mine's probably from the same basic deposit, but a lot further north. Mine comes from a deposit along the Potomac near the WV/VA border.

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I collected about 70 pounds of ore a couple years ago and still haven't done anything with it, precisely because the roasting and crushing process seems like it's going to be a pain. Anybody got a spare rock crusher or a stout, largish ball mill? :)

I recommended 1074-1084 for ease of heat treating. W1 or W2 would both be very good choices, assuming you know the carbon content. (If it's up in the 1% range, good HT'ing gets just a little harder.) 5160 would work, but it'd probably need more frequent resharpening. 4140 wouldn't be my choice for most edged tools.