Broke Newbie with Anvil Envy

[Charles R. Stevens]

Partner, you pay me a compliment! Glenn and Frosty are among the men I look up to. I can rattle off a more, and I would still miss a few. 

I came here about 12 years back, and read, forged and asked half stupid questions. 

 

Lots of folks, some no longer with us helped me. Many here I gladly call a friend, even tho we have never met (well exept Steve Sells). 

[H3xx]

In my experience, as long as the question is on topic, there are no stupid questions. I stand corrected. Always happy to learn something.

[eseemann]

H3xx, 

Working as a government contractor I have found many people trying to achieve the the goal of a truly stupid question. I find that one thing new hobby smiths have to unlearn is what they have seen in the movies. From Conan the Barbarian to Lord of the rings people are told that you can cast a steel sword. That question has been asked several times on this site as well. If you get the chance search youtube for "Forging a wrought iron anvil" to see why a new Ridgid 68622 Model 5 6-3/7 x 7-3/4-Inch Forged Anvil #77 costs $650.00 on Amazon.com. You see like someone that is willing to ask questions and is not offended if you find that what you thought was not the truth. That makes you OK in my book. Have to ever looked up All Metal Recycling? The website says "Buy or Sell Scrap Metal Springtown TX" and one look at Google Earth says this looks like my kind of place. 

[ThomasPowers]

Well I really prefer the scrapyards surrounded by a mob of angry locals waving pitchforks and torches while the proprietor is googling "fastest way to the border" and needs cash *fast*; but that looks like a nice one anyway.

[H3xx]

6 hours ago, eseemann said:

H3xx, 

Working as a government contractor I have found many people trying to achieve the the goal of a truly stupid question. I find that one thing new hobby smiths have to unlearn is what they have seen in the movies. From Conan the Barbarian to Lord of the rings people are told that you can cast a steel sword. That question has been asked several times on this site as well. If you get the chance search youtube for "Forging a wrought iron anvil" to see why a new Ridgid 68622 Model 5 6-3/7 x 7-3/4-Inch Forged Anvil #77 costs $650.00 on Amazon.com. You see like someone that is willing to ask questions and is not offended if you find that what you thought was not the truth. That makes you OK in my book. Have to ever looked up All Metal Recycling? The website says "Buy or Sell Scrap Metal Springtown TX" and one look at Google Earth says this looks like my kind of place. 

I've never looked them up, but I shall. They're really just up the road from me.

 

I make it a point to never ask a question with the intention of being proved wrong. That's counter productive to learning. Instead when I ask a question, I'm asking for information. No ego involved at all. I know full well that anything I "learned" on History Channel or Discovery channel is subject to change. They've certainly let go of their principles in the accuracy department. On the subject of casting steel, I'd always assumed it was obvious why you can't cast a sword. The warping issues alone making it prohibitive, to say nothing of the difficulty in maintaining the heat required to liquefy steel without destroying the vessel it's in. Pouring steel is definitely not a do it at home hobby job. Go industrial or go home. lol

I had an interesting Idea, has anyone here used the lost wax method to make an aluminum handle for a knife? Would you do it in separate scales, or mold the wax around the handle of the knife?

[ThomasPowers]

Heat was a big expensive issue; (warping could be fixed in the forge) The big problem was that casting leaves the material in a possibly very bad state---large weak crystals.  In earlier times the method of refining the grain structure of steel was by extensive forging.  So you were better off that even when you cast steel, you cast an ingot and forge it down to the sword.

[eseemann]

I saw one guy on YouTube that takes their tempered knives and casts the aluminum handle around the knife. 

[H3xx]

12 minutes ago, eseemann said:

I saw one guy on YouTube that takes their tempered knives and casts the aluminum handle around the knife. 

Cool. I have mountains of soda cans just waiting to be smelted.

[the iron dwarf]

so you are going to turn them into aluminium ore and then turn that back into metal, takes a lot of electricity to turn the ore into metal. most people would just try to melt them down.

beware though molten metal can dissolve other metals, a local casting place dumps tons of large ladles made from 1/8" steel that they have used for aluminium as they have large holes in them and having several pounds of molten metal hit you can spoil your whole day.

also adding a can with a few drops of liquid in can explosively empty your crucible

[H3xx]

9 hours ago, the iron dwarf said:

so you are going to turn them into aluminium ore and then turn that back into metal, takes a lot of electricity to turn the ore into metal. most people would just try to melt them down.

beware though molten metal can dissolve other metals, a local casting place dumps tons of large ladles made from 1/8" steel that they have used for aluminium as they have large holes in them and having several pounds of molten metal hit you can spoil your whole day.

also adding a can with a few drops of liquid in can explosively empty your crucible

Obviously I mean to melt them down and make them into ingots. I would appreciate at least the acknowledgment of that. I've done research, but haven't actually gotten into the culture, the Jargon is a bit of a second language to me.

[the iron dwarf]

casting is a lot more dangerous than forging, dont do it following some idiot on you tube who deserves a darwin award

if you are going to do it take a proper course so you can learn about it

get the PPE, this is likely to cost $1000 just for ali casting

get a proper crucible not an old fire extinguisher ( molten ali dissolves steel quite fast )

even a little research would show you that smelting is making metal from ore and that following things on you tube is a way to get seriously hurt.

a friend who has 30 years experience of metalwork nearly lost an eye and has scars over half his face and neck from melting ali, he was wearing goggles and other PPE and molten metal got inside them due to a drop of water in his crucible.

 

[eseemann]

The more Sr. scientists at the Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville told me his Boy Scout troupe used to cast aluminium in to tent stakes for fun and $$ using an old steel pot helmet. Since aluminium loves to bond with iron after so many uses to melting aluminium one day the bottom came clear out of it. They were using coal, I think they were using anthracite (hard coal) not bituminous (black coal) so when the bottom came out of the steel pot it must have been in interesting looking mess.