Open forges

[Bad Creek Blacksmith]

In the last five years as a Blacksmith I have been held back and it has always bothered me. I always felt like a fake because I couldn't FORGE WELD.

Not any more today at our open forge a young fellow that was taught by Clay Spenser, taught us. Wish I could explain it but its easier to be shown. I have been shown about 3 or 4 different ways to weld and this is by far the best way.

My 11 year old was to shy to try it in front of everyone there, but next couple of days we'll be in the shop and he'll be forge welding to. Now I'm pumped to start all those projects that calls for forge welds just to keep in practice.

I didn't complete my project today since it was nasty outside and we only had one forge lit, so no pictures and need to clean shop before I can work in it. Tomorrow heading to an auction trying to get a Peter Wright anvil.

[Francis Trez Cole]

that is great. Forge welding is an important part of the process and a hurdle to over come don't over think it that is where most people run into problems.

[Steve Sells]

congrats, I tell people Forge welding is not hard to do, but it can be hard to learn to get the first one...

[SoCal Dave]

Bad Creek: It seems by you comments that there was one way out of 3 or 4 that you really liked. What was the way and why do you think it worked for you? Was this with a gas forge or coal? Did you try the drop tong method of forge welding?

[Jason @ MacTalis Ironworks]

Hey BadCreek, I am over in the NE, with WRABA, and I just did a class on forge welding. If ever you feel you want some further guidance in that particular operation, feel free to show up at one of our open forge nights, and I'll be more than happy to help you out with it. Forge welding for many seems to be a mental block, if you approach it with an attitude of "this is hard", you will have one heck of a time getting a weld. It really is a matter of confidence more than anything else. Of course, clean steel, proper temperature, and light blows are also important, but those are just the mechanical end of it, the art to it is all in "knowing you will get the weld".

[Bad Creek Blacksmith]

SoCal Dave we were using coal but the method we were using could be done with gas. Yes we had to do a drop tong forge weld also, I made about fifteen dry runs before getting the metal hot this helped alot. Okay I'm going to try explaining this method.

First off get a piece of 5/16" round and draw one end to a point, then bend 1 inch at 90 degree. this needs to be about 16" long finished. We'll call this our poking tool.

Now just like any other forge weld you will heat your metal to a red and wire brush and flux it. Hold the flux piece above hot coals to melt flux and then stick it into the coals, no need to build a cave just need to see a little bit of area where weld is to be.

Take your poking tool and heat the pointed end to a good heat (Bright Orange) and poke at the area that is to be welded when the two pieces feel magnetic when touched together it is ready to weld. NOW COMES THE TRICKY PART when you bring your piece out of the fire DON'T hit it to hard and ONLY hit it TWO or THREE times and then STOP!!!!

Its welded together just not real well you need to repeat all of the steps wire brush,flux, melt flux,and etc., do this about four or five times and then you can work the weld without fluxing, but make sure you keep it hot. Hope this helps, maybe some day I can do a video or at least a blueprint.

[Frosty]

Good for you! I usually show a student how to weld as early as their skills have developed enough to judge heat and strike without shearing the pieces. Then I get it out of the way as soon as possible, it's a real confidence builder or as you have found it can seem like the barrier between smith and poser. It isn't but it can feel like it.

Again, well done!

Frosty the Lucky.

[Jason @ MacTalis Ironworks]

As you gain more experience, you will be able to eliminate the temperature check with the prod, as you will just know what the proper temperature is, Also, as you gain skill and confidence, you will be able to get your welds solid with only 2 welding passes. Sounds like a similar method to how I teach welding though. One of the things I'll do when demoing welds, is to heat brush and flux 2 pieces of stock, then pull them out at heat and bump them together on the anvil, no hammer involved. This demonstrates just how willing the steel is to stick to itself when the conditions are right. Sounds like you are well on your way to mastering welds, keep at it and you may soon find yourself thinking it is too much trouble to walk across the shop to the MIG welder like I do most of the time... LOL

[ThomasPowers]

I did a demo Saturday for the local ABANA affiliate that included a couple of welds for a basket---first go a cinder popped out into my hand as I was drawing the piece out and so I dropped it on the sandy floor---I can take a scale pop but a cinder is a bit too much for me! Next time it went well and the basket---about 16' long of open work for a camping pot handle came out nice.

I tell folks that one way to help sort out old vs modern items is that the modern ones tend to try to avoid welds and the old ones tend to use welds all over the place---of course they were using real wrought iron.

A couple of folks that are impressive welders are Billy Merritt and Dorthy Stigler; Billy will weld up billets at temperatures I might not even want to forge metal at and Dorthy takes time to sling off excess flux *before* getting the stock to the anvil and still makes the weld!

[Jason @ MacTalis Ironworks]

Thomas, Billy welds at the proper temperatures for his steel... alot of those odd alloys he works with weld in the 1600-1800 range, some even lower still. The more "stuff" you introduce into a substance, the lower it's melting point is: High carbon and high alloy steels have much lower melting points than plain low carbon steels, hence they weld much cooler.

As far as slinging flux off of your weld, it is a good practice to get into, though alot of my welds make that impractical, but I do often brush or tap a weld on the anvil just beforehand to do the same thing when I can. Alot of my welds tend to be smaller stuff, so the heat loss is too rapid to expend anytime. I also do a fair bit of welding IN the fire with a pair of tongs. Ask me about the 200 welded 1/8" x 1-1/4" rings I made for a friend's trebuchet project sometime... LOL

What I mean to say isn't downplaying Billy or Dorothy's welding skills, it is just to say that what they do isn't at all out of the norm for those of us who weld ALOT, Watch Mark Aspery sometime welding leaf bundles together sometime, drop-tong after drop-tong weld... and he rarely misses a weld. Welding IS NOT difficult, anyone can learn to do it if they pay attention to the conditions you need and most importantly BELIEVE they can weld. Confidence is the most important factor in welding, I don't care how perfect you prepped, heated, and hammered the weld, if you believe you can't weld, you won't get it to stick. Don't believe the hype about welding being the hardest thing to learn, it isn't, it is by far one of the simplest things we do. And..... I'm rambling.... again....

[Frank Turley]

Since it's 2011, we sometimes forget the rationale behind our forge welding. We do it because the result is forgable, whereas electric and gas welds are not condusive to being moved under the hammer. The latter sometimes crack or break when an attempt is made to forge them. Another reason to forge weld is for aesthetics, as in welding a branch to a stem. The two blend together into a "vanishing point." That growthy appearance is not easily achieved with electric or gas welding.

Once a person becomes skilled at fagot welds and straightforward lap welds, he tends to forget that there are other kinds, such as tee welds and angle (90º corner) welds. I was at a workshop when Francis Whitaker was demonstrating, and he asked "What do you want to see?" I raised my hand and asked for a "diagonal tee weld." Francis said, "Thank you, Frank." He had two flat bars and with one, he cut the corner off, maybe down to about one third of the end width. He proceeded to hammer on that angled cut to upset it. He finally got a fully diagonal end, all upset. Then he hammer sharpened it into a scarf. That scarf went to a scarf drawn from the side/edge of the other piece, as you would do for a regular tee weld. The weld took place in one heat. When finished, Francis said, "Less is more; one heat." I kept the demo weld, and it is in my treasure box..

[ThomasPowers]

Jason; I've been forge welding since 1984 and I commonly use it for a lot of things that most people rivet or arc weld.

As for proper temperature may I commend to your attention "Solid Phase Welding of Metals" Tylecote. You can weld at *any* temperature (save for absolute zero or above fusion) *if* the other aspects are right---galling of bolts is a solid phase weld at room temperatures.

Solid phase welding is a tripod with Temperature, Pressure, Cleanliness as it's legs; max out any one and you can generally get a weld---exp Galling = max pressure, Vacuum Welding = max cleanliness, Forge Welding = max temperature.

if you ever get out this way there are a number of examples of explosive welding used as an art form on the NM Tech campus.

[jake pogrebinsky]

Thomas,thank you,that last few was VERY well put.

The Cleanliness (as in the Atmosphere)is all to often left out of equasion(overcome by other factors,exactly as you mean by "max...").

Bad Creek Blacksmith,good job,and i'm very happy for you!
What i've said has nothing to do with anything,please disregard it,AS long as your welds are happening.IF,however,something is inesplicably not sticking,then it's time to refer to that conspect of Thomas's,as it has it ALL in there.

[ThomasPowers]

I tend to play fast and loose with my welding *until* something doesn't weld---then it's back to first principles.

I have in the last decade or so started adding boric acid to my 20 mule team borax and have always wanted to mix up some of JPH's "Steel Glue" flux

[DennisG]

um, I see alot of mention of using a flux to weld, some old things I have read have never mentioned a flux. I have sure weld in my shop, used it a few times and it works ok, but for me, I am a no flux kinda guy. I find it works great. I have broken some weldeded pieces apart and they were fully welded and no seams in them.

Just a little something to share and another way for others to possibly try.

[Bad Creek Blacksmith]

I want to Thank everyone for their comments, I'm still trying to find time to get out to the shop. Being a single Dad with one son being schooled online and having a bad back, things just don't get done as fast as when I was in my twentys.

[Jason @ MacTalis Ironworks]

Thomas, good summary there. I was of course speaking in generalities with a heavy focus on blacksmithing in particular. I am well aware of the principles in your post. I've always been amused when someone new in the shop stacks up a bunch of clean, polished metal and then leaves it there for a couple weeks, they often need a sledge hammer to separate the bottom few blocks, as they have begun to weld due to the pressure of the stack and the clean surfaces of the metal...

I've seen the explosive welding done on the television, but never had the opportunity to see the results first hand. If I manage to take the shop tour of the US I am hoping to, I'll be sure to stop by your place and make you play tour guide... LOL

[ThomasPowers]

Sure; I currently work for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory; but we are co-located on the Tech Campus and I can show you around. Perhaps also give you a tour of the Very Large Array about 55 miles in the boonies from here.

*Old* items were often welded without flux as they were made with real wrought iron which is pretty much self-fluxing. Typical fluxes mentioned for real wrought iron were clean sand and powdered glass, both fairly high temp materials and not very aggressive---more O2 protection.

In the 1850's bessemer/kelly steel was invented that did not contain the ferrous silicates of wrought iron and folks started having more trouble with welding----ISTR a discussion of this in Richardson's "Practical Blacksmithing" and the commercial fluxes started appearing on the market.

You can weld without a flux but you generally work hotter getting the scale to it's melting point. However try a fluxless weld of a stack of 1/16" thick strips that want to burn the outer ones before you get to welding temp on the inner ones! Or a mix of very high carbon steel and low carbon steels where the welding temps are quite different.

Most folks doing fluxless welds I have met tend to be using a single type of steel and in fairly good sized cross sections. Billet welders or tool makers welding up quite different alloys tend toward fluxed (or canned!) welding.

I was in Germany once and asked an old smith at an Open Air Museum if he could weld up a billet of bandsaw blade and strapping iron I had brought on my business trip---he said no; but when I said I could, he picked me up *over* the crowd rope and handed me a hammer and said "show me!" (He had learned his english in a POW camp during WWII!) So I proceeded to weld up the billet using a "sample size" box of borax I had brought along as well. (Yes I generally travel with billet and borax.) He kept telling me I was "too cold, too cold" as I made my welds---no sparks! So I asked him what they were using for flux---pure quartz sand and I tried to explain that for high carbon steels the borax helped weld them at lower temps---I gave him the box so he could try to track some down for himself.

One problem with Forums like this is that there are often *no* absolutes yet folks tend to speak to their experiences as if they were the only way. I know it makes posts long and wordy to try to put in all the caveats; but for new people who may not know that there are a lot of ways to skin a cat we all need to be careful to expose them to the wide rage of possibilities!