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I Forge Iron

Pattern welded arrow head


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I had fun making this and working out how best to do it. The socket is forged from mild steel and the front section was tapered to about 1mm. The hardest weld is the point of the socket into the pattern welded piece. I decided to jump weld this in before any welding on the sides. Sounds easy but the socket for the arrow shaft is only 10mm diameter on the inside and the wall thickness is under 1mm. So I used a tapered round bar to hold this. It also had the advantage of making the socket cold enough not to buckle or work open as I lightly jump welded the two together, then welded down the sides.  
Once the two pieces are welded together there is not really any chance of tweaking the socket back into shape other than bending the tails out of the way, which I didn't want to do. I have a pair of specially adapted tongs for holding the socket after its all welded up which makes life a lot easier.

The arrow head is a Swallow Tail head about 110mm long and 45mm across the tails and weighs about an ounce.

sw3_zpse91d318f.jpg

sw-2_zps9ac6209b.jpg

sw4_zps4953ce5e.jpg


Mick.

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  • 1 month later...

Benton: Seeing as we haven't heard back from Mick or heck, heard from him recently I'm afraid you're going to have to decide on the billet composition on your own. Were I to surmise a mite I'd say, judging by the contrast in the pattern the dark etched steel was very low carbon, perhaps pure iron or maybe wrought. There is more wrought available in the UK than this side of the pond. Then there's the bright component. One very popular alloy escapes my memory at the moment but a high nickle alloy is good for high contrast in the etch. L-6 is popular and metal cutting band saw blades are typically very close equivalents. High nickle etches bright.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Thanks for the kinds words about this piece. 

 

Benton, the pattern welded steel is made using 15N20 and either CS70 or 20C. 15N20 has 2% nickel  and is the bright part of the pattern. CS70 is a 0.7% carbon steel and 20C is a 1% carbon steel. No pure iron or wrought in this piece at all I'm afraid Frosty. From my experience pure iron etches bright along with wrought which etches a grainy bright, if that makes sense.

 

Mick.  

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Frosty: you thinking of 15N20?


Yes I was Eric, thank you.

You win a cooky!

Thanks for speaking up Mick, it's so much better to hear from the maker and read my speculations.

The 15N20 was a pretty safe guess on my part, it's so popular for the bright component it's a surprise when someone uses something else.

The CS70 and 20C aren't in my play book, wrong side of an ocean. Those are good high carbon steels, 70pts and 100pts in blacksmithenglish. The nice dark color had me fooled. (like that's an accomplishment <grin>) Guessing at pure iron or WI was a wild one, the wonderful contrast had me thinking it had to be really low carbon to etch so dark. Shows what I know eh?

What did you etch with?

Frosty The Lucky.
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CS70 is UK spec steel and 20C is from Sweden but they are very similar to your 1075 and 1095 carbon steels.

 

I etch all my pattern welding in ferric chloride as its safer and the etch is cleaner in my opinion. It is a general misconception that the carbon content has anything to do with the colour of the etch, I used to think that myself. It is in fact the Manganese that dictatates whether the dark layers are shades of grey to almost black.

 

The photo below shows some pure iron inlaid into a pattern welded bar. The pure iron is almost the same colour as the 15n20.

 

 diamond-bar-don.jpg

 

Mick.

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Thanks again Mick. I'm bought out of another "traditional" Myth. Manganese content determines etch color. As does Nickle doesn't it, or am I missing something?  It sure brings alloy analysis much more to the fore in planning patterns. Are there references for other alloying metals as they relate to etching?

 

Frosty The Lucky.

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Frosty, you are right about Nickel. 15N20 does have around 0.4% manganese and would etch a light grey, but the influencing alloy is the 2% Nickel keeping the steel bright and resisting the etch.

CS70 has on average 0.7% manganese and etches a dark grey. 20C has about 0.45% manganese and again will etch a light grey. Chromium is another alloy which will influence what colour/shade you get in the etch unless the manganese content is high..

 

If you know what you are doing and know the alloy make up of various steels you can use this to your advantage and get some interesting patterns that look almost 3d. A low manganese steel next to a high manganese steel in your pattern will give a shadow effect to the darker steel.

 

Mick.  

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