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I Forge Iron

Black goo coating on stack.


teenylittlemetalguy

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very interesting WIP pictures.  thats a HUGE kiln to run relative to that set of billets!  some interesting concepts in use as well, they run two billets simultaneously with something as a bond breaker in between the two, and they knock the square corners off the billet before they start working it down.  i wonder if that was a technique developed to keep the sharp corners from splitting and being problematic or what.  its a great example of using a thick copper plate as an underlayer so you dont need to build up the full mass of the billet with layered material, but only get one patterned face.  awesome pattern they developed as well, and it really pops with the (presumably) rokusho patina.

 

great find teeny! :)

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I like the two stacks at once plan. And the copper baking plan as well. Looks like they have a small delamination between the third and fourth layer on the right side, my guess is that is from the uneven stacking.
The kiln looks like an indirect model so they can control the heat with baffles. And it is huge, must be an after hours project at a large production facility.
When I use a translators directly on the kanji I get acid charcoal flour paste and smear.

I am also surprised at the shallowness of the cuts they made for the pattern. I think I have a bit to learn from that. More smaller cuts than the large dramatic ones I have been using..

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Bear in mind that when they are making those cuts they have already forged it WAY down. That's why they have that big slug of copper on the bottom, the mokume layers are much thinner than would be otherwise manageable without some extra meat behind them, so you can cut through almost all the layers with relatively shallow cuts.

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That is true, they are only shooting for a sheet not enough for a frog.

I found a reference to a coating on a stack of Mokume http://mokume-gane.com/documents/SantaFePaper.pdf
Page 7. But it is talking about hide glue and it was a failure. I am supposing someone found a reasonable material.
But references just don't seem to be available.

I finished reading the paper and see the solution was the foil that is used today, but the original link appears to be newer than this paper

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bear in mind that that solution is based on the temperature controlled electric kiln without an inert gas atmosphere approach. I believe it can also be done in a gas forge, but it might need a separate muffle (like a pipe) for a solid fuel forge.

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We definitely have an advantage over an electric kiln with uncontrolled atmosphere but I am looking for any advantage I can find. My idea is to get extra protection but still be able to see the stack. Which it looks like these guys have with the goo. The photos appear to me to be newer than the paper so I reason that they found something worthwhile. I am only guessing it involves boric acid and charcoal dust. But what is the liquid component? I tried water and that just boils off. I am going to try a couple different oils in the mix and see.

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