A couple of questions

[shooter93]

Hello to everyone,
I have a couple of questions primarily out of curiousity. I don't know if I'll set up a forge in the near future or not but I do read a lot about Blacksmithing and have watched a number of them work. It fascinates me so like many other things I learn what I can about it so I thought I'd ask the people here a couple questions. If you were going to pattern weld for something like knife blades and had real wrought iron what steel would you use with it? I realize that now adays it's done using two steels but I was curious about people who now or used to use wrought iron. Also are the custom die or swage makers who can make forge dies for things you might want to make a number of? Thanks for any answers.
Scott

[Jeff Seelye]

but I do read a lot about Blacksmithing and have watched a number of them work. If you were going to pattern weld for something like knife blades and had real wrought iron what steel would you use with it? I realize that now adays it's done using two steels

[Dave Hammer]

I have made layered steel billets with highly refined wrought iron and old Nicholson files (most probably 1095). If you make knives and want them to be high performance, using wrought iron is probably not what you want to do (however, I've been told that carbon migrates during the process of making layered steel). If you want to have a dramatic etch on a project, wrought iron works very well. The following pictures show a dragon handle knife made by Dan Boone (Louisa, VA) from a billet I made with wrought iron and Nicholson files. This knife will never be used as a knife, but it is a beautiful work of art.

[ThomasPowers]

Depends. For an old fashioned blade I would use blister steel, shear steel or even high C bloomery material.

For a more modern blade I would use old black diamond files that were 1.2% carbon. I would also manipulate the size of the pieces so the High-C stuff was a greater percentage than the low-C stuff and try to do a carbon balance calculation to get a decent total carbon across the blade.

for ornamental work wrought iron and pure nickle is very nice.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard Scott, glad to have ya. You know, if you were to put your general location in your header you'd be surprised how many other smiths live close enough you'd be able to get some hands on help. That and when we're traveling, us old farts won't have to rely on our memories to know who's neighborhood we're in if we want a tasty snack.

Lots of folk here with decades more experience than I where pattern welded billets is concerned. My advice is develop your blacksmithing skills before you attempt such ambitious projects as bladesmithing, let alone pattern welded bladesmithing.

Learning to forge weld is a proceedural thing, learn the proceedure and cues and it's no problem, nothing magic about it at all at all.

Frosty the Lucky.

[shooter93]

Thanks guys, I'm in Central Pa. Frosty and I'll put that in the header. Like I said I may or may not set up a forge in the near future. I'd like to ofcourse but since I own a small construction/cabinet/furniture company I'm not sure I have the time right now. I have done a fair amount of forge welding on a friend's forge as a learning experience mainly, simple projects. I realize that the use of wrought iron and higher carbon steel isn't done anymore much but I was curious what they used long ago and what kind of servicable things they could make with it. I manage to stumble across some obscure old books and letters and it's interesting to read about the old techniques and to two smiths swapping secrets. Thanks again guys, as you can see I don't post much but I've been reading your stuff as a guest for quite awhile.
Scott

[Frosty]

Thanks Scott, it's good to know in which region a person you're talking to lives.

It's even better to have an idea of what level a fellow is at and seeing as you've been forge welding all you need is a little equipment and some time.

Using wrought and HC steel together is as old as humans have been working iron. The first "steel" was probably meteoric with up to 5% nickle and other goodies in it. There's no refining necessary for meteoric iron like wrought needs, simply heating and forging is often enough to drive off non metallics.

While this could just be a story, Jim Bowey supposedly forged Davy Crocket's super duty bowey knife from a meteor.High performance steel alloys often have a few % nickle in them.

A few excellent practice projects that might fit right into what you do for a living without requiring any more than a closet sized smithy is specialty and custom wood tools. Ever try to find a coping blade for a wood plane? All you'd need to make your own including forge welding a laminate (steel and wrought) blade would be a bean can forge, Bernzomatic type mapp gas torch, a small anvil a few hammers, files and such.

I've known more than one bladesmith (forging blades before going to the grinder) who worked in almost alarmingly small areas. One here in Anchorage made knives start to finish, literally, in a livingroom closet.

I would NOT forge in a closet using a solid fuel forge! You can make a dandy small forge for coal or charcoal but they're just flat unsafe for in the house. A bean can forge can be shut off and it'll cool in a few minutes, in an emergency it can even be thrown through a window to get it out of the house, not so a solid fuel forge.

Frosty the Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Frosty I think you were having a birch tree moment. Jim Bowie was not a smith. The Bowie knife was forged by James Black supposedly to Jim's design.

Also meteorite generally needs quite a bit refining but no smelting; it's pretty dirty usually.

As for stacking High-C and wrought iron it is still done today for historically accurate blades for the stuffy purist LH'rs. I've done it myself!

WI is used a lot for knife fittings by makers who want the aged look to their pieces (though for LH pieces it *should* look almost if not brand new...)

[Frosty]

Maybe my historical knowledge of Jim Bowie, Davy Crocket, the alamo and such is more movie based than book based. I seem to have a pretty strong visual about the memory so it could well be from a movie or TV. On the other hand, I visualize strongly when I read so maybe not. Maybe it's a tree thing, I don't know.

Yes, as you say meteoric iron does require significant refining but not as much as iron being refined from ore. A lot depends on the meteor, a metallic chondrite would be a serious job turning it into an iron anything more than a weight.

LH pieces? You make Left Handed things? Sure, why not but how about a pic or two and maybe a whyfor?

Frosty the Lucky.

[EWCTool]

Back in the very beginning of the Iron Age they only had two types of steel available. Cast Iron, which would be a cross between pig iron and cast iron, could vary from .4% to .2% carbon. With this much carbon in the mixture the metal could not be forged or it would crumble, although it could be cast rather easily. Gradually they learned how to refine the metal into pure iron or wrought iron. I use the term pure very broadly. To get usable steel you simply combine the substance with very high carbon content with the substance of very low carbon content.

In other words you forge weld the wrought iron to the cast iron, this would produce a steel billet. Although it would be no competition to the steels of today, but in those first days of the iron age when they first discovered this process, it could be equivalent to the alchemists finding the ingredients to make gold.

So yes cast can be forge welded to wrought iron to make a crude steel.

I hope this helps.

[territorialmillworks]

A few years back I met a knifemaker who cold cut meteorites and then ground them into decorative knives. Said that he had to go very slow because they were brittle. Only one word - awesome

[thecelticforge]

Welcome to our world!

My favorite pattern welded (I don't use the term Damascus) materials are 1095 steel and a lower carbon/high silicon alloy. It can be hard to find here at times. I have found it makes very tough blades. I think the silicon keeps the carbon from migrating.

[ThomasPowers]

Ahh the start of the iron age was the bloomery process which made wrought iron directly from ore. If they did it wrong they *could* get cast iron but that was considered a major error and was discarded as useless. About 1000 years later they started making cast iron in the stuckoffen and finally figured a way to convert it to usable wrought iron. (The Walloon process and a bunch of others followed by puddling and finally the Byers process)

Cast iron is in no way a "steel" and the values would be 2%-4% not .2% - .4% for the carbon content.

Using the bloomery process you can get everything from a very low carbon bloom to a very high carbon bloom (to the oops---cast iron).

As part of the method of working a bloom into usable wrought iron---repeated stacking, welding and forging, the carbon content tends to go down---much like in the similar process in making japanese swords.

Pig iron *IS* cast iron---just run out onto the casting floor to form ingots or "pigs".

Cast iron is a liquid at welding temps for wrought iron---it splashes! (I've tried it) It is possible to use it to transfer carbon into lower carbon material but this is not done at welding heat---the UN book on Blacksmithing gives instructions.

If you can decarb cast iron enough to make it into steel then that can be welded to other steels. (both China and India worked out methods of casting things in cast iron and then decarbing them to produce a steel layer over the inner core of cast iron)

Cast Steel is a totally different thing and though it was know through wootz and other crucible steels coming from Central Asia it was not a major factor in Western Europe until the 1700's when the Huntsman process was discovered.

(This is my area of interest and I have smelted iron from ore using a Y1K bloomery process)