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I Forge Iron

Trouble Fusing Layers


AZtrapper

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Hello, This last weekend I made my first attempt to forge metal. My ultimate goal is to make a fixed blade drop point knife. I'm using an old rasp for the metal. I'm using my uncle's propane forge, anvil, and tools. First I heated the rasp to a very hot cherry red and cut about a 4 inch section off for the blade. I proceeded by heating the section and flattening it to about double the thickness of sheet metal. I thought that the thinner the metal is, the easier it would be to fold. I folded it once and tried to fire weld it to no success. I had heard that borax used as a flux works. I tried it, but I still can't seem to make the weld. Any suggestions?

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Got lots of suggestions if you are willing to give us a bit more information first. Have you done a bit of research ahead of time to kind of get a feeling of wot this involves? The reason I ask is that this same question has been asked on here a lot of times and a lot of knowledgeable folks have spent alot of time writing ideas down on how to get started.
Have you ever seen anyone forge weld?
Do you have a bit of time forgeig anything other than this item?
Do you live in Arizona?
I live in Glendale and would demonstrate this in person at my shop if you want to visit. And of course this just will not happen here in the summer. Late fall will work for me if you want to set up a day.
You may also wish to contact local smithing and or farrier groups in your area and see wot they have on the calender that you could attend.

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My question is; Why are you trying to fold weld the same piece of steel onto itself as a layered item?

If the metal is clean, the temperature right, and in the gas forge the flux appiled correctly, it should weld.

I would suggest forging the rasp to the basic shape you want, then make your first blade from that following the advice elsewhere in these forums,

When you have got a little confidence in completing your first project, then consider moving on to other projects.

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I have done some research, searches on this website and youtube. It seems that all of the demonstrations I have watched have either been about Damascus or decorative ironwork. Thickness of the metal, isn't really discussed in what I've researched.

I have never forged or seen anyone forging prior to this. I'm confident in my ability to shape things with a hammer, but this fire-welding is causing me some headaches.

I do live in Arizona, near the city of Showlow. I'm not aware of any local groups, and at this point I don't have the resources to visit you in Glendale, although I appreciate the offer.



My question is; Why are you trying to fold weld the same piece of steel onto itself as a layered item?


I thought that this was part of the process. Fold and fuse to increase strength, atleast that is what my friend told me. If it isn't then it looks like I'll have to do some forum searching.
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Yup, you need to do more forum searching.

Welding the stock back on itself only creates a lot of work to end up with exactly what you started out with. A file is a file, and if it's good steel and not case-hardened, it will make a decent blade all by itself without any need to forge weld.

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Contact K and G in Lakeside and see when is a good time to speak with Ken Mcfall, Give him my name and see if you can visit when he is welding billets.
These days welding billets prior to knife making is almost entirely done for unique patterns and that requires two or more kinds of steel so those patterns will have contrast with each other in the finished piece. Depending on the steels some etch darker than others and some lighter. Together they are great.
Don't take offense when we tell you to do more research. But you do need to do more research. And the only skills you must possess to make a utube how to do video is to have a desire and a camera. So take wot you see on those with a grain of salt. Some are really well done and informative.
Now for the real basics. Forge welding as a starting point for smithing is not a good start. You say you know how to move metal with a hammer and that is a good thing. However to really get good at shaping hot metal you need a lot of practice. Good practice.

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Wow. Just Wow. Forge welding, especially forge welding for blades is considered a "graduate level course" and as I read your post it seems you are entering elementary school. You can jump ahead *IF* you have someone who can stand over you telling you when it's just right for the alloy you are using, if you are hitting too slow/hard/angled, etc. Generally we want a student to be a decent smith before we start bladesmithing.

Lots of points in your post; one of which is that most propane forges are not engineered to weld and that trying to weld in one not built for it often does damage to it. Did you clear this with your Uncle first?

Regular working temp is way cooler than welding temps some forges you *double* the propane pressure to weld in them---some just won't weld as the heat out gets to equal the heat in and the temp doesn't rise any more to get to welding temp.

If you start with a good metal alloy forge welding is more likely to make it *WORSE* than better. Especially if you are new at it! Decarburization, weld inclusions, poor welds, cracking due to overheating, grain growth---think of it like taking a new car right off the dealership floor to an old mechanic who has never worked on anything built after the 1960's and asking them to "improve it". *Please* ignore all the crud on Youtube and especially anime where they don't know squat about patternwelding and spout urban legends as if they were the truth! (My boss likes to show me episodes from 'the Sacred Blacksmith' just to see me get red and the face and upset about how many untruths it;s teaching people...)

So if the library is still there, get thee over to it and ask the desk about doing an inter library loan on "The Complete Bladesmith" by James Hrisoulas---turns out that a couple of hundred pages written by someone who is acknowledge as a master of the craft is often better than a page or two or short video put out by people that may be complete idiots on the subject.

You might want to check into the Arizona Artist Blacksmith Association and see if they know of any bladesmiths in your neck of the once woods. Or if you can manage it I'd by happy for you to stop by my forge in Socorro NM some Saturday after mid July for a daylong getting started pattern welding class. (I was taught by a master smith who gave me a class back in 1984...) Sorry it's so late; but I'm taking two forges and going camping with them in Colorado over the Fourth of July holiday at a Middle Ages re-creation event and so getting ready and resting up after takes a couple of weeks out.

Note: if you are under 18 you will need to have a Parent, Uncle, older Sibling, etc with you bearing a signed paper from your parents or legal guardian that states that I have their permission to teach you blacksmithing and knifemaking. My wife teaches spinning (been teaching it for over 30 years); so if your ILP (in Loco Parentis) has an interest in that rather than wanting to smith too something can be worked out.

I go through Showlow every February when I'm taking my forge to a big middle ages re-enactment near Phoenix (and its NOT the RennFaire).

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One of the hardest parts is explaining to someone to hit at orange, or yellow heat, because of the way we see colors, or the ambient lighting levels in our shops will effect how we see the same color(s), the other half is how to hit, When learning many of us tend to hit too hard.

I agree we need to start at the beginning and learn basic forge skills, before jumping into advanced areas such as pattern welding and blade making. While the act of forge welding itself is one of the basic skills for a journeymen smith, it does take a bit of practice before one gets to the point of 100% perfect welds every time, and that pattern welding is not a beginner project.

I am wearing my fire proof suit, awaiting the flames from all the arm chair smith's, that like to contradict me, even tho basic does not mean beginning.

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Hey Steve, buddy, you aren't going to get any flames from me unless you're buying the coal :lol: But you probably will have to bear with another story.

Once upon a time, my friend asked me to teach him how to make pattern welded knives. I told him that I was no good at it even though I consider myself able to forge weld. Instead, I directed him to an instructor who also did bladesmithing. The instructor said he would help my friend and I for a small fee which I was glad to pay, since I considered him to be the expert. He helped us shear and stack the material (1080 and 15N20), and sand it in a convex shape so that the high points ran down the middle. He then told us to use a lot of coke to keep the scaling down. The fire pile was huge. Then, he showed us how to flux out of the fire so that we didn't mess up his forge. He then set the first weld to show how to recognize the welding heat and make sure that we were successful. Then, he instructed us to draw out the billet. This was hard work, and felt even harder when just as exhaustion set in, the billet popped apart into its constituent layers. :(

My friend was so discouraged, he pretty much lost interest in doing any more of this. To his credit, he asked to reimburse me for the lesson fee, because it was his request in the first place. He was done, but I wasn't. I went over what we did and figured that the fire was probably not big enough, due to the forge geometry, even though the instructor had piled it on pretty deep. I salvaged the bad billet, cut it in half, soaked the cracks in muriatic acid, and tried it again in the same size of fire. Success!!! And all the nice layers showed up on the sides. No separating layers. Hmmmmm, maybe it was because I was using my familiar forge. On the other hand, maybe it was not having an impatient instructor looking over my shoulder making me nervous. Just kidding. I think that the reason really was that the instructor was right after all about the deep fire, just not quite right enough.

Hope these hints help a little bit. And when you go to an instructor to show you some tips, be sure to pay attention to what he says, not just what he does. :lol:

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In February I had the proverbial "15 year old kid" show up at my forge at the SCA's Estrella War. It was school day and his mother came along as a chaperon for their home school group. She told me that the only reason he had gone on the trip was to see the forge and I told her that with her permission I would be happy for him to stay while they visited other demos and if allowed have him do some forging.

So after the demo for the group we suited him up in the leather apron and he got to make his first project---a S hook. He did well. Then he started asking all the *RIGHT* questions about pattern welding---not anime of BS off the net; but he had actually read up on the subject in *good* sources and was asking about what he was unsure of. So I took one of our fun-sized billets---23 layers of BSB & PS and welded it up to show him the process. Then I had *him* draw it out and I did a smoothing run then nicked it and folded it and stuck it in the forge and told him that *he* was welding it this time. So I stood over him coaching him on when it was ready to flux and when it was ready to weld and he got a good weld on it. He was flabbergasted when I told him to keep it.

Out of the hundreds of kids that have asked me to do the very same thing---why was he one of the few that "lucked out"? He had done his homework, researched the process from good sources and asked intelligent questions. He was safe around the forge. He listened and acted on instructions and didn't try to tell me he knew it all when he didn't. He also had a parent who supported his interest in learning. He should go far---maybe not in blacksmithing, ones interests change often at that age; but whatever he does he's got a good grounding in how to learn.

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Well it's *easy* when you have a pro coaching you and yelling "Don't look at it HIT IT!" (what my coach did back in 1984 when I was trying to learn the correct temperature colour for welding and he was trying to get me a good weld...).

It's when you are back home alone staring into your own fire that it gets difficult!

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I have had a few 'disagreements' with members here when they say forge welding is too hard, I tell them they have not paid attention. In person I can get them forge welding in one afternoon if they want to try to learn, when I show them and they do it they are surprised, but on line its not likely to happen, when so many 'experts' post and the person asking has no idea who is honest and who is full of hot air.

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Forge welding may not be that hard but learning fire management and proper hammer control is often a matter of practice. I have had a number of students that I did a welding session with that then report they have problems. When I check it out I find they are trying to weld in 1" of fire or in 16" of green coal, or a fire that is 80% clinker---and proper welding fire was lesson 1!

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I tried welding over the weekend. Corn fired forge, champion hand crank blower...melted pieces off but didn't get anything like a weld started. Alas. I will try again.

What I need to do is get out the bin of scrap and make a piece of barstock...that ought to give me some practice.

Phil

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Just a little help with the jargon "smithy" is the building "smith" is the person; so calling us smithies is like calling a group of mechanics "garages".

You may have read Longfellow's poem? "Under the spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands; the SMITH a mighty ....

Many people interested in the craft do not want to put in the practice necessary to do well in it. Just like music or football or even video games you need to expect to put substantial amounts of time in it to get good. Starter projects are usually designed that a new person can make something that actually "works" and so not get discouraged by making ugly scrap while building their skills up. In general I have found that people who insist on jumping to the difficult stuff first tend to drop out before ever getting the skills down to make such items. The hours of work to produce trash gets them down whereas starting with the simple projects has them making useful (and salable!) items from day one.

I have always been puzzled why some people expect to be able to do work of a caliber their first time at the forge that in past times would only be expected of a person who had served a 7 year full time apprenticeship!

Close knit? but most of these folks I have never met in person. What we do share in common is experiences. We often quibble back and forth; but most of us freely admit that there is more than one way to do things. And offers to teach in person for free are common amongst the smithing confraternity.

Smithing is: fun, creative, cheap to get started; but you can refine your skills *forever*. I've known folks smithing under 10 and over 90 years old. However it's not for everyone. I suggest people dabble in the cheap end until they decide if they want to continue with the craft and start acquiring tools that can build up to quite a sum---my anvils are worth more than my pickup, (actually two of them are each worth more than my pickup...).

I teach what I know for free and after 30+ years of doing so I know that 95+% of the people who I teach will not go on in the craft after the first "honeymoon" period. Maybe 5% of those will come back to the craft later, making 9 out of 10 a dead loss of my time, materials, fuel, experience. Yet I continue on---it's what I do for fun and want to share that fun with others. Out of that last 10% left I know I have started some xxxx fine smiths and someday at conferences and on forums like this some respected smiths will get asked how they got started and reply "there was this crazy old coot with a disreputable red hat..."

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