Hi everyone!

I was forging this past weekend, and working on bottle openers from 1"x1/4" mild steel flat bar. I was burning coke, and got the iron too hot, at burning temperature. Frustrated i might lose the starting thickness of the steel, (trust me, i wasn't thinking then) i thwacked the piece against the face of the anvil, just over the hardie, to try and get some scale off. when i did this though, there was a loud crack that emanated from the heated section of iron. I did not put any flux or chemicals on the steel prior. it was sparking/burning. so this has lead me to be quite confused as to what might have caused the cracking noise. :blink:

Thanks,

Owen

Water on the Anvil? Makes steam and a loud bang.

That could possibly be it swedefiddle, my anvil was overheating a little...

If the anvil was warmer than air temp there wasn't any condensation on it so no steam explosion there. If the steel was liquid then it could've sealed against the anvil face on impact and trapped some air that super heated. Wild supposition that but maybe?

 

Frosty The Lucky.

Water/steam/liquid on the anvil. The other day I noticed a bit of scale on the anvil face just before I was about to weld so I quickly blew it away but accidentally spat the tiniest drop of saliva, when I welded on top of it I yelped from the almighty crack. My heart burst out of my chest like in the cartoons!

Interesting post there Owen. We should try that at my forge - might give the tourists a bit of a wake-up!

When I overheat the iron I let it in the fire, but in cooler areas.

My experience is that it cools off on top of the fire, but the iron does not burn because of the lack of oxygen-

yay or nay? 

KRS: yes, that's exactly what I do. Stop the air and wait a few moments for the iron to cool back down to a non-burning temperature. As you point out, the reason it sparks only a little in the fire is the low O2 level. Pull it out and it sparks like mad, indicating that it's burning much worse.

As i recall, there was water on the anvil from me trying to cool it down a little so i could keep readjusting its position on the stand. But i wonder if this works with different iron temperatures, not just at welding heat? I guess the only way to find out would be to test it out... 

I watched a forging demonstration at a knife show where the smith was purposely dipping his hammer in the slack tub before each heat.  He wet his anvil with it before removing stock from the forge.

 

His first few blows made that cracking noise and blew the scale off the metal.  It seemed to work well for him but he specialized in knife making.

 

I found it was a great way to loosen my hammerheads, loose heat,  and coat myself in tenacious goop.  I can tell you it would "pop" at barely red heat. 

 

I got one of those "butcher" wire brushes and it works great so no intentional "popping" for me!

Anytime someone is hangin' around when I'm forging and they start to nod off or daydream, a little water sprinkle......They wake up, with a bang!!!

Nah, I didn't do that intentionaly, it was ...... a wake up call. :) :)

Anytime someone is hangin' around when I'm forging and they start to nod off or daydream, a little water sprinkle......They wake up, with a bang!!!

Nah, I didn't do that intentionaly, it was ...... a wake up call. :) :)

Haha i like that!! :D my friends better watch out!! Haha just kidding... maybe.

when i have guests i deliberately spit on the anvil while fire welding. CRACK!!! that wakes them up :D

spit works better than water, especially if it still has bubbles in it.... lol