Forging ball bearings

[junker]

so im trying to forge some ball bearings flat so that i can weld them together for knives. my problem is holding them to heat for forgewelding. i figured out to hold them in they fire, for flattening with a sacraficial pair of tongs and just dealing with heating up both the tongs and the bearing. the problem is holding them to heat for welding, the bearing sticks to the tong and i have to weld the bearings together/ to the tongs and then i have to breakthem off the tongs and the weld doesn't come out right because i can't hit it hard enough or completely ruin the tongs. anybody have any ideas? im had to just stop forging i was getting so mad at it

[Fe-Wood]

So many details left out its hard to give suggestions. My biggest questions other than the quality of the steel are- are you forging small bearings or large ones? Are you making easy to hold shapes or just pancakes? Have you tried using wire to hold the pieces together?

[junker]

just little pancakes because i can't figure out how to hold them to make any other shape at this point. And the bearings are about as big a a nucklejoint on your ring finger. they're out of a CV joint on a 4wheeler

[Fe-Wood]

They're teeny- May I suggest forging them into about 1/4" X 1/4" Bars. They wont be very long but at least you will be able to hold them and work one end then flip and work the other. No tong loss- Then after that use the cross peen on your hammer to draw them out to maybe 1/8" thick X 1/2" wide and whatever length you get-maybe a couple inches. Bundle and wire for welding as usual....
This is how I would start anyway.

Good Luck!!!

[Fe-Wood]

To hold them, rework a pair of tongs so they have jaws about 1/4" wide, this will be the touch stop for sizing. Heat the tongs to red heat and pick up a cold ball, with the ball in the middle of the jaws and one jaw on the anvil tap the top jaw with your hammer face, putting little indents into the jaws. This will make holding from the sides possible. If the jaws are otherwise flat, you should be able to use them for the rest of the shaping. You will need tongs capable of holding the billet, depending on how many pieces you stack up.

I hope this helps-

[John B]

How about making a container out of thickish walled square tube, fill it with the ball bearings,

Soak in the fire, (you don't say whether you are in solid fuel or gas forge, but principle should work for both forges)and forge to a cube,

You could continue to forge weld into a solid cube, then draw out to make your pattern steel or whatever you are making with them,

The outer part of the cube could be removed in various ways if you don't want to include that in the finished item.

[Blakksmyth]

My solution to this problem, is to weld a foot long piece of rod to the ball bearing to allow you to place it in the fire and then forge on the anvil. Don't go too berserk with the weld as you don't want to contaminate the original material too much with rod filler.
I use the same method for forging fine leaves and bull nuts etc.

Hope this helps
Cheers,
Rob Kenning
ABASA