An experiment I've wondered about trying for I don't know how long is to weld sand in lap welds repeatedly and see if I could generate silica inclusions to mimic wrought iron.

Thoughts?

Frosty The Lucky.

Getting the scale/silica ratios just right to form the ferrous silicates seen in real wrought might be tedious.

Prohibitively tedious for a wrought iron mimic? Just right isn't really a goal, good enough to have a similar finish or maybe easy weld characteristics. Genuine wrought iron isn't real common around here. 

Frosty The Lucky.

7 hours ago, Frosty said:

weld sand in lap welds repeatedly and see if I could generate silica inclusions

Would using sand when welding billets be similar to this experiment?  Just curious.

Generally when welding billets you are trying to get all scale, flux, etc to be expressed from the weld zone not trapped in.  Trapped in inclusions are considered a welding flaw and while real wrought iron *may* have a couple of percentage points of ferrous silicates in it the better grades have lower amounts and are finely disseminated.  The Byers' book on Wrought Iron mentions that there may be over 100000 spicules per sq inch, kind of hard to manage in a billet weld.

Wrought iron is not that hard to source; there are several commercial sources, (Globe, Real Wrought Iron Co LTD, etc) and it still shows up in the scrap stream in various qualities. (I've run across it on 4 continents so far.)

Agreed, inclusions are a welding flaw, no argument there. I wasn't really thinking about weld quality or structural steel so much as finished textures, say for knife furniture or perhaps decorative products. 

A piece of wrought from the Globe when shipped to Alaska costs more than high end knife or tool steel. It's been years since I had access to the scrap stream, it's all single buyer now and wrought iron wasn't that common here. A large part of Alaskan history is after Bessemer.  It's around but what is is largely a state historical site with some pretty severe penalties for packing it off. You almost have to be on private property to pick up litter things are getting so stupid here.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Well there is a SOFA member who has been selling WI, (from a bridge he bought), at Quad-States for 20 years or more; US$1 a pound.

Thanks for the clarification.

Sounds good, I'll see if I can contact him. I seem to recall hearing about his bridge buy. 

Thanks, 

Frosty The Lucky.

Thomas- is the WI seller Jeff Funk? I recall him having had cut up a bridge a while ago. He is in MT.

Steve

I think it was Larry Zoeller and he's been selling for over 20 years IIRC and is in Ohio.

He was at the FABA conference in Ocala two years ago. I wish that I had known to ask him to bring some! 

On 8/14/2007 at 9:09 AM, Dan P. said:

There is a very eminent smith here in the UK who only uses silver (quartz? silica?) sand as flux. He takes the merest pinch and casts it atop his fire while heating the work to be welded. Watching him do this led me to the conclusion that, while he referred to this action as fluxing his work, he was in fact either fluxing his fire, or, more likely, simply performing a confidence enhancing ritual with no real effect.
As noted before, for the majority of welding flux is not really necessary, and in some cases can even be a hindrance. With correct fire management, even high carbon steel can be welded without flux.

 

Funny you brought that up. Several years ago at our Northwest Blacksmith conference we had an incredible blacksmith from Russia for one of our demonstrators . He must have brought his own flux because he simply tossed small amounts of it directly on the fire to our amazement. His welds were on very delicate parts and never failed.