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Advice to newbies from a newbie


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9 hours ago, Scrambler82 said:

Like the steel they made the Titanic out of !  lol !

Didn’t the Shipyard make the Rivets out of ReBar..  lol !

(snip)

 

I doubt that, do you have any proof that was what they made the rivets from. I know 2 types were used on the titanic, have seen metallurgical analysis of them
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Another guy had mention this book in his thread "The Modern Blacksmith - Alexander Weygers"  and I'd like to say a few things about this awesome book.Mr Weygers lived way back like in 1930s and 40s and I read he even had applied for a patent on a UFO type flying machine lol. I know he sounds somewhat crazy but he was no idiot in fact he was a stone and wood sculptor and was in fact highly educated.

But what so radical about his book was that he was indeed a hardcore junk man! And this is book is like scrap metal bible on stuff you can use for anvils and heat treating rail road track anvils and reworking hammer heads and other tool steel into other new tools a young wanna be blacksmith might need..

He even goes on to show how to make cool things like a endmill cutter, Open end wrenches, wood chisels and tools for stone masonry and he details what scrap metal to be on the look out for as well but you have to remember that auto makers these days use a lot of alloy steels in things like leaf springs/coil springs that they didn't use back in Weyger's day.

There are quite a few good blacksmith books out there but this one is my very favorite and I personally found it very inspiring. But like I mention in the other thread the homemade table chop saw looks somewhat dangerous to me. because it has no guards and the frame is made from wood. Makes me  wonder if his UFO flying machine was made of wood with a motor scavenged from a washing machine as well?!?

But anyways yeah this book will teach a beginner very many things about heat treatment and tempering steels and other techniques that just makes and awesome foundation for many would be smiths.. Just a heads up.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On May 2, 2016 at 1:21 AM, Kaylee said:

If you have a hard time reading the above image, the same chart is on page 14 of "Metallurgy Made Simple" here: https://lists.man.lodz.pl/pipermail/odlew-pl/2010/04/att-0000/02._20Metallurgy_20Made_20Simple-_20Metal_20Identification_20Ready_20.pdf

Just wanted to say thanks for the link! That was a big bowl of AWESOME!!!!

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  • 5 months later...
On 7/16/2014 at 4:16 PM, Jack-O-Lantern said:

A POX UPON REBAR! I hate that stuff. It takes forever to heat, and its stubborn as XXXXX   I've seen plenty of vids with fellow beginners attempting to forge it. This one guy used 3 heats and 25 minutes of hammering to only slightly flatten a 1/2 inch tip. Its like if someone put superglue in play-doh. All kinds of impurities that I don't really know about yet.

If you use charcoal and have to get store bought then do not use bricket charcoal. Use natural wood chunk charcoal. I recommend royal oak brand. The other stuff is like a spark fountain and dos'nt heat the metal very well.

Thats it guys. Any tips would be appreciated. Good luck.

 

 

Terms corrected from "Coal" to "charcoal" because they are not the same thing, also edited for language violation

I think It might be the forge you are using or box bellows that you find rebar hard to heat. I am incredibly beginner but I made a forge from an old brake drum and charcoal that can heat up rebar white hot in under a minute.

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5 minutes ago, Sam Wohabe said:

I think It might be the forge you are using or box bellows that you find rebar hard to heat. I am incredibly beginner but I made a forge from an old brake drum and charcoal that can heat up rebar white hot in under a minute.

you missed the point that rebar is crap metal. only good for reinforcing concrete

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Alexander Weygers, studied blacksmithing in the Netherlands as a young man. He later earned a degree in mechanical engineering and then studied ship building. He switched to studying sculpture under two renowned American sculptors. He spoke at least 7 languages and worked for American intelligence in W.W. 2. And yes, he received a patent for  a hovering airship. Heck of a guy.

SLAG.

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7 hours ago, Steve Sells said:

you missed the point that rebar is crap metal. only good for reinforcing concrete

American rebar perhaps. Other countries other specs. Swedish rebar is made to close tolerances.

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I didnt know it was so easy to see what country produced the rebar we are salvaging form the scrap pile.  Feel free to explain to me all how wrong am.  This Junk metal statement is based on the principal is that in repurposing materials the safe bet is to reuse it in a similar task.  Rebar is made for structural uses, and needed to meat structural spec's. so its not needing any chemical standard, so it can be many things and still meat structural specs.

Most of us here at IFI attempt to educate and assist people.  We try to get people to understand that rebar scrap is not the best choice for critical uses, How is your statement contradicting the status of rebar aiding in that endeavour ?   When you sell things made from rebar, do you tell your client where you sourced the metal for their project you are charging them for?

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Actually, Gote, could you post the spec for swedish rebar?  I'd like to see how it differs from over here.  We have a remelt plant producing rebar I pass on a regular basis and their scrap yard is not very specific; real garbage can stew steel.  Though hopefully no Cobalt 60 anymore!  (This story happened right near where I am! El Paso is right across the river from Juarez:  https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/accidents/juarez.htm )

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14 hours ago, Steve Sells said:

I didnt know it was so easy to see what country produced the rebar we are salvaging form the scrap pile.  Feel free to explain to me all how wrong am.  This Junk metal statement is based on the principal is that in repurposing materials the safe bet is to reuse it in a similar task.  Rebar is made for structural uses, and needed to meat structural spec's. so its not needing any chemical standard, so it can be many things and still meat structural specs.

Most of us here at IFI attempt to educate and assist people.  We try to get people to understand that rebar scrap is not the best choice for critical uses, How is your statement contradicting the status of rebar aiding in that endeavour ?   When you sell things made from rebar, do you tell your client where you sourced the metal for their project you are charging them for?

I appreciate that IFI curmudgeons are very helpful and trying to assist people. I agree entirely with you that it is better to use known material that is suitable to the purpouse. I also agree that it is better for a beginner to use "virgin" mild steel. BUT

It has been said a number of times that IFI has an international readers. The US situation is not universal and some of the advice given is not necessarily relevant in all corners of the world. I do not doubt your statement that US rebar is crap. This does not mean that all rebar in the world is crap.

Someone looking for material in Sweden (or Norway or...) will not be likely to find salvaged rebar from the US. Nearly all rebar available to the public here is standard new material sold to amateur builders for small projects. In most places this is the only steel easily available. The manufacturing process often involves continuous heat treatment; something that is impossible if the analysis varies the way you describe for US manufactured rebar. There is also requirement on weldability. The last time I saw the specs for rebar the tolerances on carbon content manganese etc were quite narrow.

The material used for any manufacture should of course be suited to the use of the final product. However, most of the things people show on IFI is stuff where the spec of the material is inconsequensical. I do not see any critical uses and newbies should not attempt to do critical stuff anyway since there are a number of things that can go wrong like cold shuts, bad welds, burnt steel, wrong temper and and yes wrong material. No newbie should make critical stuff in any kind of manufacture or trade. Period!

The question here were two 1: does rebar heat up differently than other steel. I think you will agree that it does not. 2: is rebar a suitable material to the beginning blacksmith. I believe you when you say that this is not the case in the US.

 

 

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Marc, Thank you very much!

Thomas, The Swedish Standards Institute sells the datasheets with copyright. I do not have one available  so I would have to send for one and mail it privately. It is easiest to rely on the manufacturers specs. I hope you are happy at the moment with Mark's link. I do recall the .22% C figure and recall that the toleraces on that was quite close but cannot find the site at the moment.

In my experience (including grinding balls, aluminium powder and rebar), higher quality is usually cost effective. When it comes to rebar it depends upon the building standards. If they allow you to calculate with the higher tensile strength of a better steel, the better steel is cost effective. (I once was involved in an operation where a concrete manufacturer found it cost effective to buy hot rolled and then cold draw it to a higher strength.) If, however, the standards require that you calculate with a lower tensile strentgh then it is cost effective to use lower quality rebar. My guess is that US building standards assume lower quality steel so that allows US rebar manufacturers to get away with crap.      

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For serious smithing and construction reasons I wish we had tighter controls such as those posted by Marc1 here in the states.  Here the only testing requirements are Johmony and Charpy testing, these involve stretching to failure and breakage testing, that is all, anything that passes qualifies to be used as average normal rebar.  I would like to point out that here welding on rebar removes any certs it had before the weld operation.

I am aware there are other grades used for critical bridge applications that do have other requirements. but its large coated and rare here.`

Thanks for reply Gote, and to Marc1 for the link

 

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As Steve says there are good grades of rebar here in the USA, also medium grades and a lot of low grade.  What most people run into is the low grade stuff as that's what's commonly sold at hardware stores, big box stores etc.

Getting scrap from large critical projects is rather harder these days due to security concerns.  Homeland Security takes a dim view of folks wandering around bridges, skyscrapers and nuclear power plants.  I;ve seen some very nice 2" (5cm) diameter rebar; but it's rather hard to forge down into the sizes I need, hmmm slices would make interesting bowls using a press to shove a mill ball into the top....

Now I have used some of the old square rebar from the 1920's and had enough carbon in it to make good tooling!

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If I lived closer I would like to go and  test for rebound etc, being a metal recycle plant you may be getting a mixture of steels.

the rebar I have seen in Aust is much harder to bend than mild steel many tradesmen made crowbar out of rebar.

Looks like rebar in Aust  can be high tensile, this information is from a major steel supplier. 

IMG_1852.JPG

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  • 5 weeks later...

I remember talking with Billy Merritt, whom I always affectionatly reffered to as "The King of Junk Yard Damascus"...  He seemed to have made knives out of every possible source of scrap, and could tell you which brands of mower blades etched up brighter in a billet, and which would wash out.  It was always informative to just listen to him, he would randomly drop these pearls about, patternwelding, and knifemaking in general... He mentioned just in passing one time that grade 60 rebar acted like 1060 steel and needed an oil quench, but made a decent hunting knife, and that the clips/stand offs that were marked grade 60 or 75, made an excellent knife on their own.  If you are determined to do things on the cheap, you can, you just have to experiment more and do the destructive testing...  I also know guys who use the "good" rebar to forge tongs out of...  If you start with a thick enough section you can't even tell, and they are nice and light and springey like using coil spring...  I have plenty of fancy steels, and have to admit to looking down on rebar in general, but I know smiths whom I respect who have been able to get quality work out of rebar...  Maybe its not all junk...

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If we're going to talk about metallurgy, I have an old stock rear sway bar from a late-2000's model mazda sedan. I assume given the required tensile strength, it should be a relatively high carbon steel. Any idea what it might be?

I suppose I could use it to make a drift and a couple hardie tools, but what about a knife?

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Do a spark test.

Search using google with the term "iforgeiron" and a search term, to find some some stickies on alloy identification, and read a little. This same question comes up every 2 or 3 weeks.

SLAG.

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