TheCowBear

McMaster-Carr has the best prices I've found for flat stock 1045 or 1040. They also sell 4140 and 1085 in flat stock. Does 4140 weld well? Would 1085 work well for a bit or does it get too brittle with heat treating? If 1085 does work I'd like to purchase from one supplier to save on shipping costs.

I've been slowly working my way through the Burners 101 and Forges 101 posts, but they're really long so it's going reeeally slowly. I lied, I can't seem to find 1040 steel anywhere on the internet that sells it in small quantities. I found a few places that sell it in the thousands of pounds though. I don't think I could ever use that much 1040.

Thanks guys. I’m learning all sorts of things. Part of the reason I was asking about the round stock is I’m not sure my new forge I’m working on will get up to forge welding temps given my current burners. I know a couple of places where I can get 1040 and 1070 steel but your comment brings up two more questions for me Frosty. What are the basic rules of forge welding? I know you want it at yellow heat, use flux, and to set the welds gently. What else am I missing? Second question; can you tell the chrome content of steel the way you can the carbon content? I know that most carbon steel tells you the carbon content in its name. If there are four digits anyway.

So do you use the slitter and then the drift? And would O-1 tool steel work or is that a no go? (I just found a site that sells it in bar stock, which means I can wrap and weld. Which is a whole host of other issues to figure out) I have been doing this as a weekend warrior for just over two years and most of my experience is with blades and minor scrollwork. So not super experienced. I would love a flatter and I don't know what a top tool is, so thank you for giving me more things to look up and potentially buy. I would love to get to the point where I can do decorative etchings and inlays, but I'm not even close yet. Lots of things to look forward to learning.

I have a friend who asked me to make them a hatchet similar to a viking handaxe. I have never made a hatchet or tomahawk so I've been browsing this forum and am curious where people source new steel. I don't really want to make the hatchet from the salvage material I have because I know it's really old leaf springs and I can't vouch for their long-term durability. I have found a few websites that sell S-7 tool steel and one that will sell 4140 steel, but both are round stock 1"-1.5". How painful is it going to be to make a hatchet out of that if I don't have a power hammer or a press? I also don't have any punches, but I do have the steel to make a drift for the eye. Is that going to be impossible or merely difficult? Thanks in advance, any other advice is greatly appreciated TheCowBear

Mikey, thank you there was definitely confusion there. A couple places have said not to use your burner as a torch and I was trying to decide if this qualified as using it as a torch.

The burner pipe is 8” long with a 3/4” interior diameter. I did butter the wool before spraying with the rigidizer, but I didn’t have a torch big enough to heat the inside to red hot so I just let it dry on its own, will that be a problem? I will keep all of this in mind when I eventually build new burners.

My bad. The burners say 1 1/4-304. I didn’t build them, they came with the square forge that I bought off of KSL so I’m not sure how the gas jet was made. I going make it more of a D shape by making the Kastolite a bit thicker in the center on the bottom so it ends up with a floor that is less curved.

Thank you and here are more pictures 1) is the set up without the burners attached (excuse the clutter please) and 2) is the burner inside the "T" I did read the first few pages of the Forges 101 thread, guess I didn't make it far enough. I'll remedy that. Frosty, I do have enough blanket to reline it, I don't know if I'll have enough Kastolite. But the main problem is that it isn't quite wide enough to make some of the tools I was making. I could turn them on the diagonal but they still caught and tore some of the refractory cement off. I will probably still reline it if I have enough clay, but I would need to halve the suggested thicknesses of the blanket and clay. Thanks again

I've been attempting to blacksmith for a couple years now and this is the forge I started with: It had these burners: I have since built this: After reading a decent portion of the burners 101 topic I think the burners I have will work ok for the new forge, but I was wondering 1) how to make them more efficient and 2) the best way to mount them without having access to a welder? I haven't found much on the forum about physically mounting burners just about angles and depths, but not ways to attach them. That might be a failure of my search skills, so sorry if that is the case and this specific question has been answered a billion times. I am planning on adding Kast-O-Lite 30 to the new forge, but one of the forums said to drill holes for burners before doing that step so I'm posting before doing that part. I did add blue rigidizer but it looks like it may have drained all the way out. My shop is 50 min south of where I live and I haven't been able to check since I was sent these pictures. My goal with the new forge is to be able to use it to forge weld and heat treat as finances to build multiple styles are limited. Any other suggestions y'all have in regards to the build would be grand as well. Thanks in advance.