Forging Stainless For The First Time.

[7A749]

I apologize in advance for not taking any in process pics. I was doing this after hours and just got into getting it done.

For the record, this is the FIRST time I've ever forged anything from stainless. The grade is unknown. I bought a sheet of this stuff from the scrapyard specifically for a couple projects I've planned to do. Paid $1.75/lb which is the going rate around here for resale stainless at the scrap yard. Thickness is approx 11 ga. (1/8")

Anyways, I did the initial profile with my plasma cutter and cleaned it up on the belt grinder. I don't know how many heats I've got in it, but maybe a few hours total time for everything. The main goal here was to experiment with how it worked under the hammer, how long it remained in a malleable state and what kind of polish it would take after I was done forging it. It's far from perfect, but it fulfilled my original criteria as to what to expect when forging it on a larger scale.

The veins were initially cut with a chisel tool I made to do this, then I used a thin cutoff wheel on a 90 deg die grinder to enhance the lines. The distressing is done with a needle scaler. I used a 50 grit ceramic sanding disc to create some smooth surfaces on top of the distressing, then finished it on a sisal wheel with black compound for cut and loose muslin buff with green compound for the color.

I heated and repolished it a number of times to see how it colored up. Used water and oil for a quenching medium. I have to play with the heating a little more and use some really small brazing tips for the edges to bring out the "rainbow". I was able to get a little on one of the heats, but it's difficult to control and will turn gray from overheating it in a flash. The material took on a straw gold color after moderate heating and quenching in oil. I thought is contrasted well with the as forged black color of the distressing and reverse of the piece. I normally use a die grinder and thicker cutoff wheel to remove all the scale off the reverse side of the work I do, but left this the way it came out of the forge.

A few of the earlier stages..

A few things I've picked up from this so far.......

The material is HARD. (No Duh! lol) 

The window for hot working it is less than mild steel or so it seems to be after this experiment. 

It produced almost no scale to speak of in comparison to mild steel.

It takes a polish very well after preparation, which I was expecting and a key reason I wanted to see how this turned out. Coloring is not as easy to achieve in comparison to mild steel tho. I generally use a small hand held propane torch for doing coloring, being its a lot easier to control the heat output than with oxy fuel. I intend to use panels of forged and polished stainless contrasted with dark colored mild steel panels for some light fixtures I have in mind. Stainless holds bright glossy finish without the need for coatings or regular maintenance in normal conditions. I really like the bright finish for some projects and used nickel plating to produce this in the past. It gives you a high shine, bright finish without the need of coatings to protect it.

Since the local plating operation here burned to the ground six years ago, there is almost no one within a 70 mile plus radius that does decent (or affordable) nickel and chrome plating. There are outfits down in Detroit from some looking I've done, but that's pretty well a two hour drive in traffic one way. I found a place up near Saginaw, but I wasn't real comfortable with their unwillingness to provide some type of minimum baseline charges before dropping a bunch of stuff off up there to find out they want a fortune for the work after its done. It looked like a pretty sketchy operation driving by. I've had some done by a place in Kalamazoo thru a friend who does some high end home furnishings, but he said they were a pain to deal with and very expensive.

**If anyone is in the mid Michigan area and knows of a good plating outfit near the Lansing area, please post it or PM me. I've looked around a little, but have come up empty so far. Many thanks if you know anyone!!**

I plan to do a lot more of this in the near future. Any comments on your experiences would be fantastic and appreciated. I apologize as well for the length of the text, but if someone has suggestions knowing exactly what I'm working with creates a context to base them upon.

Thanks for viewing.

[HEAP of JEEP]

Steve, still loving the texture you get on your pieces.  I've never worked with stainless so can't offer any thoughts or advice on it though, but it sure looks like it has much difference appearance that the things you've shown picture of made from mild.  Should make for some really cool contrasting pieces.  Looking forward to see what you create.

I'll ask around for anyone that does plating up here in Traverse.  I don't know of any off the top of my head, but even if there is someone, we're farther away from you than Detroit.

[7A749]

Thanks a lot man. It would be great to find a competent plating outfit again the one here in town was old school and prices were very reasonable. Really was sad when it burned down. They had been around a long, long time.

Going out to start on a base for an aluminum frame I made about 12 years ago and never finished. It was for a demo at a wedding show, but the booth that was going to use a couple of my frames found out they couldn't have any secondary advertisement, or they could be asked to leave. 

When we can hook up I wanted to ask you about applying simple Damascus type techniques to some stuff I have in mind, purely for the effect. I'll be sending you a care package soon too  

[7A749]

Nothing special, but I took a pic of it inside. You can really see the gold tint the metal took on after heating and quenching. 

[BD1]

WOW ! That looks awesome. I  don't think the photo does your work justice. 

Looking forward to see if any others have tried SS work, pretty cool , and definitely HARD anyway you look at it. Nice job !!

[7A749]

Thanks Bob. For a first time, it came out ok. It looks better in person, the photo doesn't show the gold contrast. I tried several times to capture it but it either looked too gold or not enough lol. I'm working on something else right now, hopefully I'll have it mostly done today. More stainless to come..

[IronAlchemy]

Thanks for sharing. The heat patina looks great. 

I have a project with some welds to match in hot rolled stainless plate that I had hoped to do with a scaler. This gives me hope that the approach will work. 

I forge a lot in stainless and love it because I hate to finish and refinish my work. The as-forged look is very much like steel but you can easily get the nice highlights if you want to show that it is stainless. Rule of thumb is that it takes 1 ½ times the effort to forge stainless over regular mild steel. A power hammer really helps. Unfortunately, forge welding does not work so many traditional designs are not possible. 

Doug Wilson

[7A749]

Thanks so much for the input Doug. Yeah, I've discovered that it's a bit more work and it doesn't seem to "stay hot" as long. Most all my work is in sheet metal. I hope to expand into more actual "blacksmithing" techniques (like forge welding, shaping stock on the anvil, etc) at some point. I need to hook up with some ppl that have experience so I can learn. Everything I've done is self taught. I dunno what kind of scaler(s) you have, I have four.

I picked up an older but very nice Michigan Pneumatic Jet Chisel (they "borrowed" the name from Nitto Kohki) with fine needles that works very well. It has a lot of power, but doesn't tear the work up. Besides that one, I use a cheapie Harbor Freight slip on for an air hammer and it does a real nice job distressing but not too aggressively. The other two are Jet repops by HF and will tear thin stuff up. I use them more for cleaning welding slag than anything else. I've posted some other stuff here and used a scaler to distress the surface. Mainly a mirror frame and a simple leaf similar to this one but with less detail.

I would love to see some of your work Doug. Have you ever worked in Monel? I've done some reading about it here and it sounds like a nightmare. I've done some welding on it and machining it is a real bear. Just wondered if you had any experience with it.

Thanks again.

Steve

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Look up passivating stainless. It eats the surface iron off, and helps with corrosion resistance.

[7A749]

Will do. Thanks.

[arftist]

Near white heat and hit it hard.

the higher the level of pollish the brighter the colors of oxidation.

Look up Guseppie (spelling?)

on the Artmetal.com site to see what colors can be achieved.

[7A749]

Sure will. Thanks for the advice arftist.