Cappygold

Hey everyone, I hope there is not a similar thread already but I could not find it either way.  I am looking for everyones experience with forge welding different steels together.  What combos work, which will fail almost every time etc.  As I am aware the most common combo is 15n20 and 4140 or 1080/90

Although this might be the wrong tag I could only think to place this here.  I have taken apart a microwave oven and am going to try to forge weld part of the transformer together as practice because it is so nicely prepared for me.  I know for a fact that the transformer is coated in some sort of resin designed to mitigate heat or electrical shorts.  Does anyone have extra info regarding this coating and whether it is safe to cook it off? As of now I cannot find valid information confirming what the coating is, any help is appreciated. Cheers!

@Dave51B how would you recommend that, I will be basically sealing the thing in with a dome/air hangar looking structure of steel sheet and the sodium silicate refractory.  Is the blow dryer to much potentially

So I basically designed this off of a JABOD forge but used a high heat fireclay as the base foot the mix.  It ended up being mostly a mix of 2:1:1 fireclay to sand to perlite.  I used Portland cement and more sand for the layer past the 'fire pot' because I needed more volume.  Also reinforced the edges or crumbling bits with store bought Hercules heavy body sodium silicate which works like a charm for those curious.  I used lump charcoal and it got decently hot but threw Sparks like a xxxx.  Currently working on an insulating and spark trapping dome.

Link to pics on drive because chrome doesn't like me today: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B69b0Z0wuf7xSkZfMGNWSENYZ3M

My question is whether heat treating a blade that has been heat treated in order to give it a blue hue would change the overall temper of the blade.  Mostly asking to see if I could blue a blade to a nice teal/ cobalt color and still get it to a good temper, because I know that trying to temper at the temperatures for this (550-600F) is pretty off for a strong blade.  I was considering doing this to a 1095 steel so feel free to give me some input.

How about a "reed mfg co erie pa" 130lbs vise I found.  Anyone have thoughts or concerns about using this as an anvil, it rings like an anvil and bounces mildly well.

The idea here is to get a 'functional' anvil as cheaply as possible.  This is just an idea and I am relatively inexperienced(based only off of what I have read), so help me out please; but, I think it seems like a good idea to strap a 2 inch thick (hot rolled) steel plate to a stump and use that as my first anvil.  I know that it is probably wise to just put in the money and get a proper anvil, but let me know what you think some of the drawbacks, or dangers would be.

Best from an aspiring smith