Forging In A Pipe

[Dillion Brian Grant]

Hello everybody, I use a charcoal forge (yes real homemade charcoal that I made myself not that store bought stuff)

And I have heard quite a bit of talk about using a pipe for a more even heat treatment.  The way the method works is you put the steel pipe in the forge and let the forge heat the pipe up, then you put the knife or other tool your intending to heat treat inside the pipe so that the heat from the pipe heats the metal.

Now what I was wondering is would it be efficient to use this for regular forging to be able to heat specific sections more easily?

[ThomasPowers]

in heat treating blades don't forget to put a layer of crushed charcoal in the pipe to scavenge O2.

And yes you can use it as an improvised muffle furnace.  However heating is slower than when the metal is in contact with hot coals. (Conduction, Convection, Radiation)

[Dillion Brian Grant]

First off what do you mean scavenge?

And secondly so do you think it would be the most efficient thing to do?

[Charles R. Stevens]

By scavenge, the oxygen in the pipe is absorbed by the charcoal ( the carbon combines with the oxygen to make co or co2 neither of wich react with the steel)

It may not b the most effecient, as TP pointed out you heat the pipe, the pipe heats the air and charcoal inside and they in turn heat the steel. It is however efective

[Dillion Brian Grant]

Ohhhh ok so you were meaning to create a reducing atmosphere, 

 

So not most efficient but very effective for heat treat, so my best bet to conserve charcoal is to not use the pipe for regular forging is that correct?

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Correct that uses a lot of charcoal and unless you are heat treating/tempering not needed.

[ThomasPowers]

I'm not sure how you are using the terms so:

For heat treating:hardening you would like as even a heat as you can get on your piece *and* a reducing atmosphere so as to not mess up the surface so you have less work to do on the hardened piece.

For heat treating: drawing the temper you don't need the reducing atmosphere as the piece should not get hot enough to scale; you do need to control the temperature VERY CAREFULLY which is why drawing the temper is often done in an oven.  

When drawing the temper is done outside an oven it's often done with a propane torch or a hot bar or a set of tempering tongs to create a differential temper.

[Charles R. Stevens]

For charcol, keeping the fire size minimal ( you can only hand forge about 6" at a time) just enugh air and shutting the air down between heats. A side blast seems to work best for this, a trench 4" wide, 4" deep with the sides taperd out to about 8" works well, a brick on each side and a couple bricks on top is about as effecent as one can get, it makes a little furnace with a cases from each side, turn the brick on edge so you have a 4x4 opening, the brick can be pulled away and reconfigured to accommodate different shaped stock. I find a belows or hand pump to be best, as one dosnt need white heat to get to forging temp and I don't get distracted and burn up stock

[Dillion Brian Grant]

18 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

I'm not sure how you are using the terms so:

For heat treating:hardening you would like as even a heat as you can get on your piece *and* a reducing atmosphere so as to not mess up the surface so you have less work to do on the hardened piece.

For heat treating: drawing the temper you don't need the reducing atmosphere as the piece should not get hot enough to scale; you do need to control the temperature VERY CAREFULLY which is why drawing the temper is often done in an oven.  

When drawing the temper is done outside an oven it's often done with a propane torch or a hot bar or a set of tempering tongs to create a differential temper.

I was talking about the first step for heat treating (hardening) 

As for tempering I usually use an oven

3 minutes ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

For charcol, keeping the fire size minimal ( you can only hand forge about 6" at a time) just enugh air and shutting the air down between heats. A side blast seems to work best for this, a trench 4" wide, 4" deep with the sides taperd out to about 8" works well, a brick on each side and a couple bricks on top is about as effecent as one can get, it makes a little furnace with a cases from each side, turn the brick on edge so you have a 4x4 opening, the brick can be pulled away and reconfigured to accommodate different shaped stock. I find a belows or hand pump to be best, as one dosnt need white heat to get to forging temp and I don't get distracted and burn up stock

This is a pic,of my forge, it is a converted homemade coal forge that originally had a hand,crank blower but it was to,unstable so I substituted a hair dryer 

Sadly it isn't a side blast forge bit it works fairly well at least

0801171530.mp4

[Will W.]

The pipe is not required to get an even heat or a reducing environment though.

When I harden my blades or tools, I crank my blower (without the steel in the fire) pretty vigorously so the charcoal gets nice and hot. Then insert the blade or tool into the fire and bury it underneath hot coals, and completely stop adding air. Let it soak for a few minutes. The cold steel cools the fire to the perfect temperature, and when you're ready to quench, the temperature is very uniform across the whole blade and usually at a perfect cherry red (to my eyes.) On top of that, there is 0 scale, so post quench clean up is minimal. 

[Frosty]

Using a muffle is less efficient for general forging. For heat treating it had a couple benefits: 1 clean even heat in a reducing atmosphere. 2 and most significant for the beginner it's a slower process so you don't have fire management to deal with nor do you have to judge by eye constantly while passing the piece back and forth through the fire to keep the heat even. 

Please take some of the advice you get here with a truckload of salt. Beware of buzz words, vagaries and impossibles like: perfect, should, most, nice, enough, loud, warm, etc. What do I mean if I say get the nut, "nice and tight"? Does that MEAN anything to anybody except the person who wrote it? If I say, "torque it to 97 foot pounds," you can DO that and get it right.

I'm not faulting anybody for wanting to be helpful but as a newcomer here you're going to need to develop a large enough knowledge base to be able to sift for good info. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Nice and Tight means my wife can't open the jar.

My daughter can't loosen the bolt without a cheater.

A press is needed to remove the bearing.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Dillion, your image won't play on my device

[JHCC]

@Dillion Brian Grant, I can download and play your image, but (A) please hold your camera horizontally when you film, and (B) try to hold it as steady as possible. It's really hard to watch.

That said, nice little forge. Your blast might be a bit heavy, so try putting a gap between the nozzle of the hair dryer and the air inlet pipe, to spill out some of the excess.

[ThomasPowers]

Plays on my system running Kubuntu Plasma; just took 3 minutes to download

[Will W.]

21 hours ago, Frosty said:

Please take some of the advice you get here with a truckload of salt. Beware of buzz words, vagaries and impossibles like: perfect, should, most, nice, enough, loud, warm, etc. What do I mean if I say get the nut, "nice and tight"? Does that MEAN anything to anybody except the person who wrote it? If I say, "torque it to 97 foot pounds," you can DO that and get it right.

I'm guilty of doing this not only in this post, but others as well. Colloquial vernacular regularly interferes with details, it seems. 

 

[Frosty]

I'm sorry I unloaded on you Will, you didn't deserve it. I shouldn't post when I have a miserable cold, I'm cranky enough as it is, my bad. 

Thanks for taking is better than I deserve.

Frosty The Lucky.

[WayneCoeArtistBlacksmith]

Now Frosty, I think that was one of the mildest responses you have made.  Direct, to the point, advise needed and no growling.

Wayne

[Frosty]

Thanks Wayne but it followed too close on Will's response to be taken as anything but a personal shot and that doesn't have a place here. I recently unloaded on Square Nail too. Sure the THINGS bothering me might be legitimate and something that can be improved but the timing sucked.

It's not like only one or two folk make mistakes that grow quickly, we all do it. I just need to step back before hitting send, especially when I'm feeling as miserable as I am right now. No gang, don't over react, I have a head cold, runny nose, cough, running a low grade fever and napping a lot. Staring at the monitor gives me a headache and makes me even more cranky than usual. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Will W.]

9 hours ago, Frosty said:

I'm sorry I unloaded on you Will, you didn't deserve it. I shouldn't post when I have a miserable cold, I'm cranky enough as it is, my bad. 

Thanks for taking is better than I deserve.

Frosty The Lucky.

No offense taken. You're right, after all. I was being vague, and in a way, not being helpful. I didn't realize it until you mentioned something, so in a way, I appreciate it. I'll try to remedy that in the future. 

Get well soon, Frosty.