nicole

Speaking of heat treating...these are mokume earrings made with 70/30 cupric nickel and copper.  To get the treatment I heated them to red with a torch and then cast them into a small boiling water bath. Be careful. I boiled for 5 minutes.  I finished with some wax. OK durability for earrings but not good for rings.

Nicole

Very nice!  How did you do the finer fullering work?

TY Jeremy and Teeny.  With pieces this thin (~ 3/16) it is going to be tricky.  Thinking about it I will probably just use these to make some jewelry as is, and make some bigger billets to play with

Hi All,  attached is a pic of a twist billet of mokume I made. It was 11 layers of copper and nickel silver, it is shown after resawing it open.  I am wondering if I was careful and got the edges flat and clean, how I would go about fusing them.  I was thinking of a little jig that would basically be a clamp to hold the edges together at temperature, while keeping everything nice and flat.  Is there another way to do this? Thanks for any comments

Hiya, I made one that was about 30 degrees.. a bit too sharp in my opinion for making tenons..I will make another one around 45

Yes I will keep my day job. Haiku time:

I hammer the die

Steel fullered moves

Die fuller hammer

Thinking about it..I am going to be up north in mid-june..and was going to go to NS before..but this is very very tempting. Lots of miles from FL though

I have a little Lincoln Handi Mig that I love. Not as nice as a big one but good enough to put together the various shop carts, mobile bases and stick part A on part B I need for my shop. I have had it for about one year, use it fairly often and have had no troubles with it.

I think my HF hammer may fall into the category of dead soft; after dressing the face when I got it it did not take long for it to look really beat up..I did not think to pay attention to the sparks when I dressed it..need to take a look!

looking forward!

Hi John, Vaughn thanks for your most recent comments.  I am leaning to the kiss block once I knock this dreadful flu!  But anyway in reviewing the comments I think we could start a new thread entitled, " how many ways can smiths find to screw in a light bulb? "  I think this is such a great part of IFI with so much experience and so many willing to share. Thanks. Nicole

For what it is worth it would be good to estimate the current draw on the heating element so you buy a big enough solid state relay..or just get a monster 40A one..

Nicole

Eddie that sounds good too- if the working end of the die holds up well enough I can probably get a good long life with the striking end replaceable...

Thanks Frosty and Biggun; I do use a HF steel beater hammer but that's to protect my forging hammer..I need to get uniformly into the habit of keeping a forging hammer for forging.  I can try going to brass and the local heat treat

Hi all,  I made a die set out of 4140 for my smithin magician to form tenons.  It worked pretty well on the first test..I did not heat treat it.  I was thinking that since the working end of the die would be getting so hot it wouldn't matter there and at least for a few tenons I made it still looks fine.  The striking end was beat up badly though and mushroomed like crazy which I ground off.  The question is if there is a heat treat recommended to toughen it up but still avoid spalling.  I was thinking of  an oil quench and tempering at 800F for 39RC making it softer than my hammer but tougher than annealed state.   The dies are 0.50" thick, 2.5" wide.  Ultimately I am thinking of going to go to a better alloy if this set isn't long-lived.. I have some S7 around but I want to use the dies and see how they perform for a bit before I use the more expensive material. 

Nicole

A bad dream for me!  So I have N=3 for mokume billets I have made.  Quarter stack, able to forge, pretty well behaved.  Then I made a stack of sheet copper and copper-nickel, 70:30.  I was able to forge that and did not have too much trouble.  My Cu brass billet on the other hand was delaminating all over the place.  I need to make another billet..The one I made was sort of wide and hammering on edge did it in.  I did not do a good job of cleaning the sheets, I just sanded them down and wiped them off with a paper towel. Something tells me it might not have been clean enough.  I left it for 2 hours at 1600F in a torque plate to make the billet.  Back to the drawing board!

Oh yes, Chinobi- it WAS too hot..forgot about that lovely splash on the anvil Thanks

Only my forge is on wheels in the smithy.  But like borntolate I am able to move everything but I usually keep things where they are.  My woodshop is in the garage is different,  and there everything is on wheels. Dust collection table saw, planer, bench,  jointer, bandsaw. etc.  My wood projects are bigger and I need to configure to run the tools.

​If you cook it it looses some iron content!

Hi Cliff, I just saw your post. I guess I should subscribe to my own threads :))  Anyway, I did work it very hot but did not do any annealing.. it seemed to be OK once I cut away all the stragly stuff on the edges of the initial billet.  I have very little experience with this and just made my first billet of copper/brass tonight to practice playing with patterns.   One thing I did notice about nickel silver is that it seems much harder to move than copper...curious to see how copper/brass behaves.  I have a twenty layer billet I will play with tomorrow

Not sure if this would work.. but measure the volume by difference.  Put water in a large pail, add salt, favorite spices.    Mark a line, gently add anvil. Do not stir.  Mark second line. Remove anvil, let dry.  Record the volume difference of the water, and using the density for steel, calculate the mass.

fold and forge weld?

Thanks for the feedback folks I have more or less gotten it together...not sure if I like the way I handled the shelf..painted deep blue to represent water with ripples..but this is v 1.0 and I just need to sit with it a bit.

Hi Gergely, Bikecop thank you; lots more to do.. :)

Hi All,

I am working on a coffee table that will have sides that are basically a "swamp scene" and a top that will be made from local hickory.  The bottom shelf will be determined.. I am thinking of using wavy 1/8 x 3/4 band stock that interlocks to create a water with ripples effect..need to try it and see how it looks. Here is one panel, in need of some cleanup but it shows the idea, It contains cattails, some fiddlehead ferns and some other things that I don't know what to call LOL.  The cattails were made with some pipe fullered down to make sausages what were closed up around 1/4 rod stock..the fiddleheads were 1/4 rod stock scrolled up and scored with a chisel.

Nicole

Chinobi thanks-  I am a bit of a barbarian. I sandblasted the piece, LOL.  Then I buffed it on a wheel and wiped down with acetone.  I tried a patina with sodium chloride, acetic acid, ammonium hydroxide and ammonium chloride that was "supposed" to give purple :) but ended up with a rose color..interesting.. but at the end of the day I think the pattern is too fine. Steve- I am going to try your idea- it really makes a lot of sense..I want to try and avoid overworking the look. Patrick thank you I will play with both FeCl3 and some heat- I have used flame techniques on plain copper and enjoyed the effect...maybe I will try it on just the leaf. Onward :)

Nicole