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I Forge Iron

Mokume Christmas ornament


teenylittlemetalguy

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Thanks guys. Anvilman you will like that I used my Fisher for this. The billet was out of US quarters which are copper and some high nickel alloy. Nickel doesn't like to move cold so all the work has to be done hot. If you use coins I highly suggest the practice of not moving it unless there is lots of color left.
Chinobi I put just a mild twist in it, if I remember it was one full twist, maybe an extra 90 deg, not sure, but I do remember all the grinding and filing, that thing looked like a truck hit it before I squared it up the last time.I like to go with a bigger stack as the layer count makes a huge difference in how nice it looks.

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quarters are a sandwich of two outer layers of a cupronickel alloy that is 25% nickel and 75% copper, on either side of a pure copper core.  On the whole it is listed as 91.67% copper and 8.33% nickel, which is kind of misleading because it reads like a homogenous alloy, instead of the actual clad composition.  its surprising to me how many people I have talked to that have grown up their entire lives with the clad coinage and still have no idea that quarters are not silver colored on the inside, and still think that there is actual silver in the coin.

 

that's a lot of activity for just being one-and-a-bit of twist, but I know what you mean with the grinding and clean up, that would explain the 'extra' patterns :)

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or I am old and my memory is failing... could be more twist but I clearly remember not wanting a lot of twist.

I have been trying to make billets large enough to make items that are not jewelry. not that i have any issues there. i  just want to expand beyond pendants. as i am not fond of green fingers and wrists and not rich enough to practice with gold or shakudo .  i did try silver and copper once . that is a vastly different beast than nickel. in my haste i missed the simple fact that silver is hot short and made a mess. i won't make that error again.

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goose up your billet mass without making a huge unwieldy tower by switching from quarters to half dollars.  same clad composition, give or take 20% more diameter, and better than double the mass.  added bonus of not overloading your layer count by the time you get down to working size/thickness.

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I have not, but it has been recommended to me by several others, and chemically/metallurgically they are the same, but bigger.  so on paper its all good :)

 

kudos for getting stack and re-weld to hold!  I haven't mustered up the mojo to try my hand at that just yet, but there is great potential there for cool designs!

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took me a couple tries, the main issue i faced was being patient enough for the heat to get there, took way longer than i thought it would. and i spent a lot of time getting the faces flat before that. much more effective time wise to do a big stack all at once i think. it might be pushing it in a forge though, i may break down and get a proper oven someday. 

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Fewer layers of weld for the size, less surface area of weld to go bad, but at the same time you have to grind off more to get to any bad sections that do appear =

Teeny, you in a propane forge or solid fuel? it would be pretty nice to have a digital kiln, but a propane forge gets it done with a minimum of fuss per dollar :)

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I am using propane and like it, it works well. Still the allure of set and soak welding is attractive. But it is a ways down the road. Other tools will come first...
I had quite a frustrating time starting out with weld failures. I tried cleaning more, that didn't help much. ( although I still clean well.)
I also tried bolting the living day lights out of the stack, that seemed to make it worse. The one thing I did that really helped and was worth every second was flattening the faces on the coins letting them stack closer together. Now I get the same good results no matter how I hold the stack together. Thin plates, thick plates or TIG welded, They are all better if those faces are flat.

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interesting concept, thanks!  iv read about planishing off the ridges, and the one I attempted like that (after planishing my thumb quite generously as well) was nothing spectacular and certainly not worth the effort, but every other one has a lot of potential without severely affecting the stability of the whole thing in the plates.

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polished hammer and polished anvil, just planish it down and try not to catch too much thumb :D grinding will indeed knock off most of the nickel, certainly anywhere there is a raised design, and will negate any layer distinction at those locations.

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Yeah, I have hammered them flat, a couple quick heavy blows were enough to help close the gaps up, seems more important to me as the stack gets taller as the combined gaps can get pretty huge on a whole roll at once. I don't think is is as critical for just a few coins. But if you get tired of chasing cracks around it is worth the effort in my opinion
Any air that gets in the stack while it is hot has the potential to poison the weld so it should be considered as a risk. No flux I have tried seems to protect adequately enough to ignore the gaps. And certainly not strong enough to dissolve the oxides. I have had luck pickling the coins , closing the gaps and retrying the weld though.

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my intent has always been to kind of revive this section, but I keep letting work and life get in the way of my hobbies :'(

I am right there with you. life is busy (and we have a new baby due next month) but i will do what i can to help you revive it. 

i was really hoping it would attract some guys that don't use coins. i need to make the step myself but find i keep relying on coins as they are cheap and easy. guess i need to push myself that way.

if you want you should PM me, we could compare notes on this in general . I talk (and listen) way faster than i type and we seem to have bored everyone else off the topic here...  

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We are NOT NOT NOT getting bored with this topic. Several of us are following along reading everything you both type!
I had about given up, since I only got one usable billet from my 10 or 12 tries. I had been mixing coins and doing them in small batches. After reading along so far I have learned to use the 1/2 dollar coins after flattening them, and stack them up tall for a decent size billet. I just tried to get a couple rolls of halves but they arent't available here in our tiny town. They are on my list for next trip to the city.

I appreciate the typing you are ALL doing. This is GOOD stuff!

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