evfreek

Hi. The first picture is quite a bit smaller than the second, so it is hard to compare. Obviously, these are different steels, however, and the first steel is quite a bit lower in carbon content than the second. It is a little strange: the second photo looks like there is a little chromium in there, but you say you bought this as 1095, so there must not be any. The first steel looks like it has less than 80 points, but you would need comparative coupons to tell. I would guess from the photo that it is like a rail clip, which is about 1060. It will harden up just fine, but it is not 1095. I use rail clips for tools, and they will shatter if you mess up the heat treat, forge them cold, weld them carelessly, or have cracks in them.

So anhydrous is a problem when you are not affixing smaller pieces? I had some trouble with anhydrous on a lap weld recently. It clumped and did not spread, and the metal wasted away without sticking. The 20 mule foamed and spread well. Strange, others seem to do fine with it.

Alright, Glenn. Here's the evidence. http://hlspaces.com/Articles/WoodBurningSmoke.htm Oops, this well cited article tends to support your position. Natural is not necessarily good. Hmm, "smoke ravaged lungs." Sounds unpleasant. Time to change my position.

Get home safely, and get well soon, Mark. Gotta be careful about those bikes. That CBA risks article is correct. Lots of hazards in the blacksmith shop, but none like the trip back and forth.

Hi John. I have had good luck with dilute methacrylic acid polymer quenchants. Even at a percent or so, they have markedly gentler characteristics than water. For a quick and dirty polymer solution, you can use the crystals out of disposable diapers. They are fairly high molecular weight, and aren't really soluble, but they will emulsify, which is almost as good. Also, they are really kind of high in molecular weight to biodegrade, but they will photodegrade. In other words, used quenchant can be disposed of on the ground surface and it should be safe. I can't say the same for oil or even brine. There is an article in the CBA magazine a few years back.

Congratulations on the recognition. Nice knife.

Your little MIG welder will do the job if you do a "forged weld". I've been doing a lot of them these days :( You will need a ground forge with a lot of fuel and a helper. For the first project, a post anvil would be a better idea, since it will be less likely to burn off the appendages. Also, the guru of anvilfire suggests a smaller project just to get the technique down. Or, you could just get a big fat stick welder. I just saw one being liquidated at a fab shop. It went for a song since it was kind of large, something like 650 amps. I bought the anvil that the guy welded with it. Mod note: link removed at request of anvilfire owner

Here is a photo of a lap weld scarf before and after a few failed forge weld attempts. Note that the failed one is pretty much wasted away to a useless shape and needs to be redone.

Hi ciladog. I don't really agree with your announcement. Rather than take your 5 samples and try to test them, I will propose a more helpful and instructive experiment. Spark a piece of A-2, D-2, 1095, 4140, and mild steel. If you cannot tell the difference between them, I may be able to help. The first two of these have extremely characteristic sparks. Perhaps you caught on when Thomas mentioned D-2. There is so much Cr in this that it really affects the spark. Note that I did not mention anything about L-6 or 5160. There are those that would say you are blind if you cannot tell these at first sight, but I need my standard coupons (and maybe a good pair of glasses).

In order to make the fuller mark for the twist, it really helps to have a "Z-fuller". This is just a 3/8 or 1/2" bar bent in a Z shape and laid flat on the surface of the anvil. It makes a nice clean fuller mark. The sharp edge of an anvil can cause all kinds of cold shut problems, as can any sharp edges of the hammer. A buddy with a torch can help fix up those cracks if you don't want to file them out. Also, a deft hand with a stick welder will help. My first pair of tongs had similar cracks at the same place. Careless, yes, but they weren't made by me. I bought them at a garage sale. They lasted 4 years before the crack went all the way through, then a touch with the stick welder fixed them right up. They were my worst tongs, and I was really sad when I lost them. I don't know why, because all of my current tongs are much better, and I can whip up another pair just like those, but I still miss them.

Hi Jason. That's a good point. I've seen mild steel with hard parts in it, but never that hard. I will go down to good steel with a die grinder and report back how deep the carburization was.

Hi Trip. I saw an article in the CBA magazine that said if you are bad at drop tongs welds, get a power hammer. Then, you can draw those reins out. I got two strikers to help me make a pair of tongs, and after we drew the reins out, he said, "you'ld better improve your drop tongs forge welding." That is pretty good advice that everyone is giving you. I'm afraid, however, that forge welding can be kind of difficult. I have seen people who have done thousands of good welds fail to stick a weld during a clinic during which they were the teacher! And no, it wasn't me. The interesting thing was that they were quite nonchalant about it. No problem, just go on. One class I was in, the teacher gave up after about three failed welds. The metal just wouldn't stick. All the right technique, with all the tips given above. The teacher did not even break a sweat. Just left it to all the students, most of whom ended up doing just fine. The funny thing is that once you are taught the first time, you will still have trouble. Then, when you go to a clinic, the teacher may have trouble. Then it will work. Then it won't work. Once, at open forge night at a conference, I was absentmindedly welding some leaves on a desk stand. There were two old professionals watching. One of them said to the other, hey look at that beginner try to forge weld. The second one said, quaint, but if you want to make money, use a TIG. The first one nodded and said that he knew how to forge weld but stopped after his apprenticeship. Waste of time, coal and money. One of them pointed at the smoothed scarf on one of the welds. He said, boy that smooth transition really turns on the wannabe smiths, but the customer can't tell. And guess who is improtant to impress in the end. Funny, there a lot of different opinions out there. Keep trying and practicing.

The shop I work in has a 25 lb LG, and it is not very suitable for tooling. First, there is too little daylight between the dies. Second, it is not very powerful at low RPM when the dies are far apart. But, it is great for drawing!

I loaded in the tools gallery. Let's see if this panel can find it. http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/36419-chipped-tool/

Hi. A bunch of clarifications are in order. First, I am sure that the tool was mild steel. I bought it as drops from a gate fab shop, and it was sheared 1.125" square. They would never use tool steel for this application. Furthermore, I only did the forge welding trick on the struck end. It was hard enough to dent my striker's sledge hammer, which surprised him. I told him about the "trick" and I placed the struck end at the forge's mouth until it had turned grey (not blue) since I was a little scared. It still was hard enough to chip. If you leave stuff sitting around in a hot coal fire, the diffusion coefficient of carbon in iron is off the charts. In my own experience, I have seen pretty deep penetration of an enriched carbon zone. The repair worked fine on my hot cut chisel. I spark tested this, and it is high carbon steel. No problem, as forged, since I did not heat treat the welded end, only let it air cool. It was not too hard, as tested with a file. Since it was the first trial of this process, I carefully tested the chisel by using it to split logs. The mushrooming was controlled and not chippy, and it filed off at is was supposed to. Here is a photo of the chipped tool. Oops, the attach button seems to have disappeared. I will try pasting. Oops, doesn't work. Maybe I will put it in the gallery.

Hi. Recently, I saw a post that suggested that mushroomed struck tool ends could be repaired by forge welding the cracks and mushrooming back into one solid piece again. I tried this out and it worked great. The tool steel stuck together really well at a reasonable temperature. But this was in a gas forge. Recently, I tried this trick in a coal forge. I used it on a mild steel fuller which had some severe denting and mushrooming on the struck end. Again, the trick worked really well and everything stuck together just fine. I gave it a touch with the file to smooth it up, but the file skated. So, I got out a die grinder and, wow, high carbon sparks. I had heard that poor fire management in a coal fire can cause carbon uptake. I became a little uneasy and toasted the end at the mouth of the gas forge until it was well into a sub critical anneal. Then, I made a mistake and used it. Yup, I had an accident. Two shards came flying off the head. It was still hard. The place where the shards came off was hard not just at the surface. So, if you have poor fire control, watch out about this trick in a coal forge. Gas forges: no problem.

Thomas, you are exactly correct. This is not an apprentice. I missed you when you were out. Welcome back! Recently, I have found that threatening to charge them a fee scares off the unengaged. It also seems to scare off the google, facebook and twitter job prospects. After some thought, however, those never were job prospects.

This anvil is as good as some I have seen that have had some good work done on them. You will miss the far edge adjacent to the horn. The horn is still usable, as is the rear of the anvil including the hardy hole and the shelf. This anvil is certainly worth more than a block of mild steel of the same size. Our local scrap store sells for 0.65 per pound unless it looks like an anvil and you look like a blacksmith. Then, it is $1 per pound. This includes pieces of RR track, ship cleats made out of cast iron, etc. You will not see this anvil at the local scrapyard. A blacksmith would have already bought it, at a premium. If I were to buy this anvil, I would probably not try to restore it to its original state. I would weld a hard strip just at the near and far edges near the horn. All preheating, weld prep and composition precautions apply! My current anvils all have something wrong with them. A collector would turn up his nose at every single one. That's why they are mine. The good anvils are the ones that the old timer informs you: "Son, you're 15 minutes late. The feller before you just walked off with that beauty for $5 per pound." They have all done some good work. I would pay 50 cents per pound for this anvil. I would rather pay $1 per pound for this anvil than the same for a piece of RR track. If you are in an anvil rich area, you might get a better deal on a used anvil. Not here.

Hi Trip and David and Thomas. No apologies needed. This is a very interesting and informative discussion, and it has opened my eyes. It appears that Thomas and Trip are talking about 2 different things. One is the anvil priests of Gretna Green, and the other is the pagan blacksmith wedding ritual. This makes me worry about my demo spiel in which I complete a forge weld, show how the line disappears, then point out that even with a lot of experience, the blacksmith cannot make the line in some couples completely disappear. It is funny to see the reaction, especially from the women in the audience. It varies from outright shock and revulsion (how can such a thing be so??), to knowing nods and winks, to vigorous head nodding and shouts of affirmation. Now I realize that there is much less historical ground to stand on. It still is funny, unless you have mostly the first kind of people in the audience, then you wish you kept the big mouth shut.

Size does matter. Zinc fume is easily carried away by air currents. The zinc "scale" that forms during warm forging is not. It goes straight down, not into my forge, since the forge is too hot for just warming up steel. It falls off when hammering and wire brushing. It lands around the base of my RR track anvil (only hot metal is allowed on the good anvil). This is the first time I have tried this, and it was a surprise. I have also tried the muriatic acid for removing galvanization. It works well on clean metal. It does not work well on rusty or painted metal. The first time I tried that, there was a piece that the acid did not get to. But the heat found it. Fancy that. Who would thunk???!?!?!? Anyway, that was the last time I trusted the muriatic acid for dirty metal. It is unreliable. I do agree that zinc is dangerous. But it is OK to cold forge, solder with, use in the chloride form as flux. I have even heated zinc plated pennies to make brass plated pennies. This is a neat trick, by the way. Squeeze the "toothpaste" out of an alkaline battery, and spread it on the penny. Somehow, zinc plates on to the surface if heated. Then, heat the silver penny in a gas flame and it will turn gold. It will not fume, as long as it doesn't get too hot. This is also dangerous. But the sharp edges of the battery case and the corrosive potassium hydroxide electrolyte are much more dangerous than the zinc or the flame.

This might be a good idea if there is some galvanized steel that you want to work on that is a little too beefy to work cold. I wanted to bend a 1/4" thick bracket from an old trailer bar to use as an anvil hold down. It was a little bit too thick for bending cold. I got out a couple of firebricks and a MAPP torch and heated it up until it barely showed color. This is about at the low end of warm forging, and steel has about half the yield stress that it has at room temperature. The difference was quite amazing. It was pretty straightforward to bend and chamfer the bracket. As I was heating and hammering, I noticed some white flakes coming off the metal. This stuff was galvanized! But, at the warm temperature, it was not fuming off into htat sickening white smoke. Instead it was flaking off as the metal was being deformed. It brushed off easily with a wire brush and fell straight down, due to the flaky rather than powdered nature. Very interesting. At the warm temperatures, hammer marks in the metal are sharper, especially if you hit away from the warm areas. Also, no dinging of even a softer anvil, since the warm steel is appreciably softer. If you have to do it, warm forging might be a less risky alternative for working galvanized steel.

I got scared quite some time ago about big grinders. When I went to the local abrasive specialty store and bought a couple of replacement wheels, the guy working there told me that people don't buy too much of them any more. They either use angle grinders or belt grinders. So, I got nervous and put my big grinder on craigslist. A fellow came over to buy it, and it took both of us to lift it into his truck. He asked me why I am getting rid of it, and I replied that it was scary. He said that was odd, since the maintenance yard he worked for had just replaced all their wheel grinders with belt grinders. He said it was probably OK, since the grinder had beefy cast iron guards and heavy tools rests that adjusted right up to the wheel. I was glad to get rid of it though, but I still prefer to sharpen drill bits on the little wheel grinder.

Very interesting. This looks a lot like the tool that Erin Simmons showed at the CBA blacksmithing clinic last week. The purpose of the pivot was for flatness and accuracy. It held a die system that put a double fuller longitudinally into a knife blade. I think that the comments above were not meant to discourage innovation. They were just another way of saying that if you are clever enough to figure something out that's new, it probably is not new, and someone is probably even demo'ing it as you are posting a thread.

I just heard that a man was killed at Berkeley Forge and Tool near Gilman and the freeway. There is an industrial district near a bunch of Asian restaurants. The broadcast said that he was struck in the back of the head by a fragment of an industrial grinding wheel. I didn't know that there was a forge shop in Berkeley. Anybody seen this one? Anyway, those wheels are scary.