high carbon welded to mild steel

[chichi]

I was forging a frizzzen for a black powder gun lock. The frizzen is the piece against which the flint is struck to create the spark causing the shot to fire. I was using mild steel for the piece and had to weld high carbon steel to one face of the frizzen. Either the steel overheated and was ruined or the welds let loose after subsequent forging. I finally started a fresh fire and was very careful with the heat and the piece turned out OK. I have made hundreds of welds with damaccus and never had this problem. Of course, the high carbon was always sandwhiched between mild steel. Obviously, I should have been more careful about the heat and cleanliness of the fire. However, has anyone had a tough time welding high carbon from auto coil spring to mild steel even after taking appropriate care? I was careful to keep the mild down in the forge to get hotter than the high carbon up side. Any special tips?
Thanks,
Bob

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Coil springs tend to be alloy steel rather than plain high-carbon. It's always a crap-shoot on how it takes. Be better to use old files I'd think, they really spark good too.

[Frosty]

A good source of simple high carbon steel is RR rail.

I've had some trouble welding automotive coil spring, I think it has a higher % of chrome. Leaf spring hasn't been any trouble at all, nor has car hood spring, especially the coil type, this stuff welds very well and reasonably easily. Another really good source of spring steel is the overhead door installer in your area. They get lots of service calls for broken springs and don't have a use for the broken ones.

Frosty the Lucky.

[Frank Turley]

It gets welded at a "sweating heat" which is a light welding heat; no sparks. I use a W1 drill rod for a high carbon steel. It has about 0.95 to 1% carbon, and I get it from Travers Tool. In that way, there is no guesswork about alloys or carbon content.

http://www.turleyforge.com

[HWooldridge]

Might be easier to forge a frizzen from mild steel and case harden it - will leave a soft core and glass hard surface that sparks well (at least, it works on flint/steel tinder starters). If you must use high carbon, place it higher in the fire or better yet, put it in the fire after the mild has been heating a bit since the carbon welds at a slightly cooler temp.

[chichi]

Thanks for the comments. I might switch to leaf spring which I believe is 5160 and I have had good luck with it in the past. I could also go with 1095 which is straight carbon,I believe.
I have never case hardened anything so I thought welding would be easier. Does Casenite work well enough to cause sparking in mild steel?
The piece that did turn out was, as Frank described, done at a sweating heat and no sparks.
B

[Don A]

A lot of the origianal lock frizzens were "re-soled" with rivets. A piece of file steel is fitted, drilled, hardened, and then riveted to the existing frizzen. Brazing is an option as well.

Good luck welding 5160 to mild. It can surely be done, but I've heard a lot of folks say that 5160 is very tricky. I would go with file steel; 1095 or W-1. And what we normally call "welding heat" for mild is too hot for high carbon. It'll crack and crumble if over-heated.

We have done frizzens in Casenite, and it will spark, but bear in mind that you are only hardening a couple .001's deep, so it will wear through after so many shots.

Don

[dablacksmith]

i would agree with the file steel .. i would not go with case hardening ... it works but it has a finite life (u wear thru it ) and then you have to do it again .or make the frizzen completely out of high carbon ! not much harder to file and you dont have to worry about burning the steel and the hard weld ect... ive welded up a few frizens and i think ime going to make new ones the next time .good luck!

[gazilla]

interesting subject. a question for those who already made good/decent frizzens welded from mild and W1: how thick are the pieces before welding, how thick after forging, how thick when finished, did you thermocycle the piece a few times before hardening, was it water hardened and if yes do you often end up with deformed pieces, did you temper it a bit or not at all? mm ok a number of questions actually, sorry.

[Frosty]

A lot of the origianal lock frizzens were "re-soled" with rivets. A piece of file steel is fitted, drilled, hardened, and then riveted to the existing frizzen. Brazing is an option as well.

Good luck welding 5160 to mild. It can surely be done, but I've heard a lot of folks say that 5160 is very tricky. I would go with file steel; 1095 or W-1. And what we normally call "welding heat" for mild is too hot for high carbon. It'll crack and crumble if over-heated.

We have done frizzens in Casenite, and it will spark, but bear in mind that you are only hardening a couple .001's deep, so it will wear through after so many shots.

Don

I've welded quite a bit of 5160, some to mild, some to mystery alloy and it's more demanding of proper technique than mild but NOT particularly tricky. Just follow the rules and stick to the sequense and it'll be fine.

Rule #1 for welding, ANY kind of welding, is, Clean CLEAN CLEAN! If it's something I feel will be critical I use a file on the joint at heat to make sure it's matched and clean. If it's really critical oh say a chrome alloy I file at low to no heat and oil on the last couple file strokes to eliminate the chrome oxide weld barrier.

Flux and Bring to the proper heat, use whatever hammer pattern the join requires being properly gentle till the join is made. Then and ONLY THEN dres and refine the join!

The first leaf spring weld I watched was made at medium orange heat, say in the 1,700f range, maybe a little but not much hotter. The big secret was it was not just clean, it was near polished shiny and a bit oily. The flux was applied lightly before it was closed let alone put in the fire. I think the flux was Sure Weld but it's been maybe 18 years ago and I'm lucky to remember what I had for breakfast. I use 4pts borax to 1pt boric acid and it works really well for me.

For a frizzen that didn't NEED to (or want to PAY for something period) I'd just forge the whole thing from a medium high C steel. I have quite a bit of RR rail so unless the customer wanted to PAY me to buy W1, I'd just pinch enough rail for the job. Heck, I've seen suitably large old Allen wrenches for sale in pawn or second hand shops, let alone garage and yeard sales cheap enough I buy them for stock. Besides strike a lights, frizzens and such, they make excellent chasing tools and smaller carving tools. Wonderful stuff Allen wrenches.

Frosty the Lucky.

[chichi]

As I said in my original post,I think I got a good weld after cleaning the fire. I set the piece aside and will inspect when I get back to the forge later in the week. I like the brazing idea. I brazed the bolster and pan to the lock plate on Sun. and I thought it turned out well. The other ideas are good. I am not doing this for money so I probably wont give up until I have welded a couple more frizzens. I will switch to a file or 1095 though.
Thanks and great comments.I just dread the thought of making the piece from high carbon and trying to file it even after annealing. Will wrought weld more easily to high carbon?
Bob

[Don A]

I'm just curious how a brazed frizzen will do in the quench to harden it.

It figures that you would have to both in the same heat, but I've never quenched a freshly brazed joint.

How do you suppose this would hold up?

BTW, one of the smiths I work with regularly said he actually has a frizzen swage for forging frizzens from a single piece of high carbon stock.

[Frosty]

I'm just curious how a brazed frizzen will do in the quench to harden it.

It figures that you would have to both in the same heat, but I've never quenched a freshly brazed joint.

How do you suppose this would hold up?

BTW, one of the smiths I work with regularly said he actually has a frizzen swage for forging frizzens from a single piece of high carbon stock.

Brazing should work just fine, it's a LOT tougher especially in compression than necessary to hold the HC under the flint. The carbides were brazed to the teeth we used on our auger bits and they almost NEVER failed. The auger we used was 8" hollow stem and we drove it with a 453 Detroit Diesel down to depths of 14o' through some REALLY gnarly soils like glacial till, as the norm.

Braze is way more than up to keeping your frizzen attached till it's worn through and beyond. Don't sweat the quench but if you can't help worrying give it a try on something easy to forge.

Frosty the Lucky.