Nick O

4 hours ago, JME1149 said:

Brass melts at 1700F, Copper at 1981F, Cast Iron at 2200F, Steel at 2500F. If your pot started to melt before the brass, my guess is the pot is Bronze (1675F) or Aluminum (1218F) or some other low melting point metal. Is it magnetic? Is it heavy or light? Take a file to the surface, what color is the base metal and how do the shavings come off? Pictures might be helpful.

Not sure how any of these metals would respond to the welder. What settings and rod were you trying?

the brass turned out to be some kind of alloy 

3 hours ago, arftist said:

How do you know it isn't cast iron?

Sure sounds like cast iron to me. 

Read up on welding cast iron, vee grooving, pre and post heat etc.

Then realise that any circular shape is the most difficult to weld in cast iron.

You could possibly bronze weld it using silicon bronze rod and a TIG or oxy-gas torch but you will not be  melting metal in it any more except lead or zinc. 

As to why it is responding so, you burnt the iron. Generally burnt cast iron cannot be repaired by welding at all.

Finally, why do you think you need to chip flux off a new rod?

You don't. You just need to strike using the bare end of the rod. 

if it were cast iron it would have busted when I quenched it at an orange heat

I have this melting pot that I think is made from iron. I was using it trying to melt some brass that would not melt and instead the pot began to melt. The pot was at a orange heat when i pulled it out of the forge and since I know that its not cast iron I cooled it in my quench bucket. When I quenched the pot it did not break nor leak water so I thought I would try to fill in the hole using my arc welder. Since I was using a new rod I had to break the flux off the end of the rod to strike the arc. I taped the rod on the pot and it exploded with sparks and to my amazement there was a crater in the pot were I taped my electrode. The pot has a vary grainy look to it were I taped the rod. The welder was at about 90 amps then I turned the welder down to 80 amps and I had the same results. Then I tried a nickel rod because that is what you are supposed to use when welding cast iron and I had the same results. I've herd and have read in books that when people try to forge weld a piece of iron and steel together the iron will melt much faster than the steel. The pot is also very hard but i think that is because it was quenched. I would like to find out how i can weld this but i think a tig welder would work.     

I recently bought a coal forge that had the blower body acting as the tuyere. I also bought a forge blower because the one that came with the pan was very old and cracked so now I have to make a new tuyere or chop up the blower case. The clinker breaker and air grate was missing so I had to by a clinker breaker off of Centaur Forge now all that's left to do is cut a hole in some 1/4in plate steel for the clinker breaker. What I need to now is should I make the hole oval or round? Also how much of a gap should I leave around the clinker breaker?  I'm using coal about the size of your thumbnail. the clinker breaker is 2 1/2in long by 1 1/2in deep and 2in wide.                     Thanks for you time also happy late Easter!

                                                                                                                                                                               Nick O  

That's an old vice anvil I seen one on auction go for less than $80 and was complete and not used much this was also a auction with tons of tools it was a auction meant for blacksmiths

1 hour ago, BIGGUNDOCTOR said:

Best bet would be to try and find out exactly which alloy you have. Many "brass" items are actually classified as a bronze, but they look yellow so they must be brass , right?

The guys at work are constantly mixing up the Beryllium copper, and brass chips / scrap parts. BeCu has a more reddish brown color, but when it is cut and is covered with oil it looks like brass.

Aluminum bronze is used for bushings and rollers.

They all have vastly different mechanical properties from one to another.  Try and track down the info on them if you can before going too far.

it would be mostly brass there is the possibility that its got some lead mixed with it but not much

4 hours ago, Quench. said:

Nick do you have any experience sand casting?  If so, anything hotter than aluminum? 

Good luck!

-Q

thanks for the info

8 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Yes.

will it be a major difference?

22 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

are they leaded brass?   Sword guards come to mind and perhaps posting in the casting forum rather than general blacksmithing forum; but yes you can melt and pour them.

from my research it says they use leaded brass for bushings will it make a difference when I cast it?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but I've got some questions on casting brass. I was given all this brass for free and was wondering if I could cut it into smaller chunks and melt it down and pour it into brass hammer molds. Or if there are other things I can do with them. Now for those of you who know about bushings how they have those ones that have graphite in them theses ones are not all of these are solid graphite free inch thick brass bushings. Each one ways 50lb so if any one knows if this can be done please let me know  also they are out of a turbine of some sort. the one with my hand on it is a quarter of one of the bushings which would be the one with the big chuck gone. there are not cracks in them they are cuts made by a cutting wheel. the bushing are not cast either

you sir have 2 great vices

looks like it will work great

maybe you could use a angle grinder to sharpen it

its a arm and hammer anvil

I would use a wood stump to quiet your anvil

fix it if you think its necessary  

great start

49 minutes ago, Blue Duck Forge said:

Do you know what alloy of Cobalt (or if it is a pure electrolytically deposited sanple)? I would expect that its hot working charactistics could vary significantly based on what you actually have. I found the following document that covers forging of some Cobalt based superalloys, but it may or may not be suitable for your material. 

http://www.haynesintl.com/pdf/h3159.pdf

Its a bit for a lathe or mill at a factory

6 minutes ago, Hay River said:

I'm not sure wether or not it is forgable.  I know in the machining world that cobalt drills are a step up from standard high speed steel drills.  They drill better, you can push them a little harder, and they last longer.  The posts I have seen recommend against forging high speed steel, I would think it would apply to cobalt as well. 

your probably right its a bit from a lathe or mill from a factory

so I was given a piece of cobalt and was asked if I could make something out of it and if not the person needs it back. this is probably a very silly question but I am almost certain I cant forge it. any feed back is much appreciated.

Nick O

2 hours ago, Cardinal Knife said:

Sorry, I get what u mean now, my house is only about fifty feet away.

you could get an extention cord and plug in some box fans to get that bad gas out of you shed

I would go with what Glenn said this is something you want to address immediately before its to late and also how far away are you from a working electrical outlet? 

21 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Nick; can we have more info on that?  "Real old days" Roman times? Earlier?  I've never heard that one and would like to track it down to add to my store of smithing trivia.  

I will try I to find it back read this back in September for school work had to write a research paper on what ever we wanted so I went with blacksmithing and read this some were and I think it was in roman times

back in the real old days the blacksmith would give the small pieces that fall out of the forge when they were very hot to bread makers to heat the bread they were baking 

the two pieces I found were in a woods for a very long time there was trash and all sorts of thing on top of them so my thoughts are that its an old dumping sight. The piece that is a very odd shape has no pitting even though I had to take my knife and cut through tree roots and move other trash the metal has no pitting and I mean no pitting anywhere and its been out here a long time so I think its wrought iron. Also there is a chisel thing on one end this is forge welded on and there are two eyes on this piece to that are forge welded.  I believe its a factory made piece off of an old bailer or implement. Another reason I think its iron is because looking at the sides its got almost a damaskus look to it but its very hard to see. The other thing is a what I think is an old wagon axel, the ends have a hand made nut that threads on and has a shoulder that looks like its to keep a wheel from moving too much also the ends were the wheel goes is tapered. It weighs about 20lb and has a bit of a bend in it also its kind of springy.  its also pitted I also included a pic of the nut were you can see a forge weld

11 hours ago, Joel OF said:

Shame it wasn't made in 1875 - that grinding wheel.

you should have see the wheel it was soaked in oil and I think the last time it was used some one used it on wood

that's   a big chunk of cast iron maybe you could make a swage block but if you use it for a stand I wouldn't use it for anything that will take a lot of beating