Sploing

Many thanks for all your responses and sorry it’s taken me a while to reply. i think the most likely issue, what what I’ve read, is going to be temperature so the plan is to use a pyrometer to tweak the forge to the point that it’s capable of producing high enough temperatures

So I’m a fairly new blacksmith, self taught and I built all my own equipment including my propane Venturi forge.Things were going pretty well until I tried my first forge weld and I just cannot get it to stick, and I’ve tried a bunch of times. Here’s my method, hopefully one of you can tell me what I’m doing wrong: I take 2 squares of 6mm mild steel and clean the faces on the grinder using a 36 grit belt until they’re flat and shiny. I mig weld them together Throw them in a preheated forge and let them get cherry red then take them out for a quick brush and a sprinkle of sodium tetraborate decahydrate around the edges. Back in the forge until white hot then out again for a few light taps with the hammer, more borax and back in. Out again when white hot for a few more (slightly heavier) taps with the hammer then left to cool. I’ve attached a picture of the ‘welded’ faces of my last attempt to give a little more info, any advice greatly appreciated. Thanks

Well, I cleaned it up and there wasn’t a mark in sight. A plank, some scales and maths (thanks guys) showed it to weigh 360lbs or 3.0.24

It’s in the UK, I picked it up a few weeks back but haven’t had chance to clean it. The bounce and ring are superb. There’s no way a set of bathroom scales would help, I’m a fairly big guy but I can’t lift it! i had wondered what the little projection was for so thanks!

Hello, I’m new here so I thought I’d start with showing off my (as yet unused) pounding block. Id be grateful if anybody could tell me anything about it (it has no markings I can see but it isn’t fully cleaned up yet