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At what temperatures is there no scale and oxidizing fire question!


Work With Nature

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Half a world away, I can find manufactures of welding flux and suppliers of bulk borax, and even an articulate on India removing an import tariff on borax imported from China. Aperantly the glass and ceramic industries use it. 

Borax or a suitable welding flux is available, but were to look is the question. Here as mentioned it's a common laundry additive and available at our local groccer, it is also used in conjunction with boric acid to make anti rot preparations for marine use (wooden boats) infact the two chemicals together make a rather nice flux. 

So a welding supply should have or be able to order a suitable welding flux, a chemical supply house should be able to lay hands on borax (50kg would be a lifetime supply) comercial laundry may may also have a sorce, it is aperantly also use deodorant in Vedic medicine, but that would be an expensive sorce. Not being boots on the ground, and not realy knowing the situation there. One assumes with internet you have a rebust phone system and a directory? 

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10 hours ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

Some steels form oxides (such as oxides of Chrome in spring steels) at low temps that make it exempt harder. 

Thanks Charles,

Ah I see. Have tried forge welding using carbon steel from a truck spring. A light bulb went off there in my head. Think I got what you mean - The flux melts just before the alloy in the steel scales up and prevents the scale from ruining the weld. 

Thanks, this is starting to make sense. 

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A way around the crome oxide problem is to insert a piece of low alloy tool steel like a file or such in between the two pieces, or in the case of an axe low carbon steel for the body and a spring steel bit. Crome alloys benifit from a chemical used in plumbers flux that melts at a lower temp than borax. In automotive spring packs, the Crome oxide that forms in the rust between leaves acts as a lubricant, earlier plane steel packs had to be cleaned and re greased as part of maintinance. I would have to search Steve's knife making 101 stickies to find the name of the chemical 

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On 9/9/2017 at 0:59 PM, Jasent said:

One thing you could try @Work With Nature is clean up your pieces again. Spray with wd40 and rivet it tight. Then heat to welding heat and set your weld.  I have not tried this my self but it sounds do-able in my head

That is exactly what I was gonna try next, but use a bolt from just iron - no galvanized. Then I could tighten it all as much as possible. The rivet could replace the bolt once it worked or maybe dress both ends of the bolt up. Also after reading the next post after yours by Charles R. Stevens about inserting some low alloy tool steel I would like to try and stick a thin piece of relatively new / old carpenters wood hand saw blade into the mid section of the axe. I think the shoulder piece of the axe is more than mild steel as there are more sparks. Good news is someone here on the forum is sending me some borax and that will help a lot if this fails. But am going to try that weld first just to see if one could pull it off. I wont mind as I tend to learn a lot anyways from mistakes. My limited experience with the 19 layer billet has shown me that it may be done if all the right circumstances are in place. Also I used that carpentry steel before with some high carbon bandsaw blades and it actually worked using the WD40. That is how I got that 19 layers. If it would have worked without WD40 I don't know. But it did not get in the way. 

ThomasPowers,

Will go back in and ask. Will bring the Malayalam name with me ബൊറാക്സ് pronounced beāṟāks. Might get lucky. I know I will be able to get an ongoing source close by here eventually.Just found out about a blacksmith shop nearby. So that is good. I can really appreciate now after having more info that without the borax depending on what you are trying to do you are fighting an uphill struggle.  

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I was once showing an 82 year old smith at an open air museum in Germany how to weld up a billet. I had brought a small 'sample box" of Borax with me (as well as the billet) and I was using it on the billet.  He kept telling me I was welding too cold.  I finally asked to see his flux---clean quartz sand and understood.  He was used to welding mild steel or wrought iron which can stand the temperatures needed for sand to work as a flux and the scale melts.  Way hotter than most high carbon steel can survive! I left the box with him so he could find it in Germany. (I saw a chemical company with "Borax" in it's name so it should be a possibility there...

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Steve Sells,

Frosty,

Guys you really got spend more time reading the threads fully or you have totally misunderstood me as to how you managed that I really don't know.

19 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

He kept telling me I was welding too cold.  I finally asked to see his flux---clean quartz sand and understood.  He was used to welding mild steel or wrought iron 

Very useful information. Did not know that. Thanks Thomas.

 

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Thanks for the link, appreciate that.

OK finally I got some borax in the form of boric acid. Acording to a member here on the forum this works well as a flux.

Source;

 

OK it only comes in 20 gram packets but only costs 16 rupees. Finally the search is over. I will give it a go. 

Thanks for all the patient help.

Cheers David. 

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Work With Nature, Have you tried the following companys for Borax?

Maliakkal Industrial Enterprises,  +(91)-484-2367251, 2368547,  No 39/754, Karikkamuri Cross Road, Ernakulam - 682011, Opposite Spectrum IT Park

or 

Paras Chem, 9 B, Santok Chand Building, Vadgadi, 318, Samuel Street, Masjid, Mumbai - 400003

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Traditional Japanese Swordmaking is also using bloomery produced steel, (the tatara is a type of bloomery), which endures higher temps better than modern steels and so the high silica ash works. (the folding and welding process not only homogenizes the carbon content it also lowers it, they often start just shy of cast iron and end up with 0.5 % C.)

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1 hour ago, Glenn said:

Work With Nature, Have you tried the following companys for Borax?

Maliakkal Industrial Enterprises,  +(91)-484-2367251, 2368547,  No 39/754, Karikkamuri Cross Road, Ernakulam - 682011, Opposite Spectrum IT Park

or 

Paras Chem, 9 B, Santok Chand Building, Vadgadi, 318, Samuel Street, Masjid, Mumbai - 400003

That's what I call going beyond the call of duty to help a member.

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Hi JHCC,

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Another great bit of information. I wonder if they meant by the boric acid not lasting as long as borax, that it burns off faster as it 's melting point is lower. Would you then have to reapply it in a slow heating fire? That is what I understood, but to be honest some stuff is just way over my head. Went today and tried the boric acid. I got further than before but messed up good. Tried to weld the carpenters handsaw blade in between the shoulders. Some of it did weld but not all. I think I did not get up to enough heat. Am using wood branches and they were not 100% seasoned, more like 80%. Also I am guessing that the size of the steel makes a difference to whether it will be able to heat up to forge welding temp. in a given size fire compared to using smaller pieces. 

Hi Glen,

Thank You for your help I have sent out quite a few inquiries and waiting for them to get back to me via email. That is how it works over here you send an inquiry and you hope they get back to you. Have done the same for charcoal, but unless you are ordering larger quantities it might not be worth their time. But I have not tried actual chemical companies like those you suggest, will definitely give them a go. Might ask a friend to ring them as my Malayalam is three words. As mentioned yesterday I got lucky and found out about a local blacksmith. That surely will get me a contact for his supplier. Plus he might be kind enough to show me some skills too.  

Hi Dogsoldat,

I was wondering about that too. Even did try using something like that myself. Was a mix of termite clay and powdered charcoal slurry. Tried welding bandsaw blades into a billet. 7 I think. They were higher carbon steel as the material did harden. Coated the billet in the stuff and most of the middle did forge weld.  

arkie,

Ha, you know if someone wants to help someone then let them. What is the alternative. But you know you are quite right I have received more than enough help in regards to finding borax and am grateful to everyone for their help. I shall follow up on all the leads now. Thanks for pointing it out though. 

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Just wanted to do a follow up on the axe and the weld.

Today I planned to use just as mentioned before, the WD40 and clean well mated surfaces to do the weld by bolting the sleeve (like a clamp see picture) and holding in a piece of leaf spring. I went for leaf spring in the end as it is one solid piece and I have had some experience with heat treating it. Making sure I had some boric acid on hand encase the hole thing did not work though. It might be also important to mention that the bolt does not go all the way though the spring steel insert (last pic). What happened was that as soon as the piece was yellow / white hot I dropped the whole thing. The spring steel came flying out and my mind was made up for the boric acid. The first three welds went bad, the piece just kept sliding around inside the sleeve. Kept putting more boric acid into the weld. In the end it finally stuck, well at least two third of the way from where normally the handle would be attached. Could not get the end near the bolt to weld even though I finally banged the bolt out of the way on both sides. I then hit on the side to see if the weld was solid also noticed some dark spots where the weld was not solid. You might be able to see that in the second last pic. Thinking now of cutting the ends of the sleeves off, that did not take. In order to draw out the exposed spring steel into an axe shape and forge the sleeve into the spring steel? But all in all should probably be able to make a small hatchet now from the piece. Will have to see. This is way harder than it looks from the videos anyways.

bolting sleeves.PNG

forge weld 2.PNG

forge weld.PNG

hitting side.PNG

bolt.PNG

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First thing is to forget the welding of the ax.. Perfect on something simpler like chain or a  poker.. Something that free's you up to not have to worry about holding a second piece.. 

 

If you really want to proceed with the ax then I'd suggest doing it differently and weld shut the area right in front of the eye first leaving the area for the steel bit to be placed in later.. or in other words a properly designed forge weld scarf joint.. 

Funny thing about forge welds is once you have experience you can simply look at steel as you pull it from the fire and know if it will weld or not.. Other thing is the steel while in the fire should have a smooth glassy coating on it.. It should not be all oxidized or crusty... You should be able to see clean metal under the flux.. if the pieces don't stick right away don't continue hitting it.. Clean, reflux and take a better heat..  Light taps to set the weld is all that is needed.. 

Here is a video of the flux on some welded wrought iron with 1018, and 15n20  and 5160 which was made into 1/4" pins for a knife.. 

In this video you can see where the flux at the tip is oxidized..  This was was being forge welded at one of the demo's I did and there is more flux on there than is needed but I stopped to take this little video and you can see the flux and the clean metal under it.. 

I'm using anhydrous borax here..  Which I boiled and crushed up myself just to throw more information in there for the group.. 

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Ah yes know what you mean with welding the eye shut first and putting in the bit later. The reason why I picked an axe was I asked meself what do I need to forge that I need right now. Axe / hatchet it was. Well since I do have most of it welded up now am gona cut of were it did not take and draw the rest out. Don't know seems like an awful waste to not turn it into one that I got this far now. For me this was difficult alright. Lots to pay attention to at the same time. 

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Don't throw it away or cut it up.. It's best to have ample material rather than to little.. I can't tell from the photos which parts are welded or not.. Take some closer up pictures of where its' welded and then go from there.. 

besides that if you are making an ax it needs to be a lot thinner than what i could see in the photo.. 

 

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You might consider mounting one of your hammer heads small end up for more effecent mass. Yes wonderful to have the second on its side as you have a hardy hole and some nice serfaces to work with. 

Welding known scrap to gether to make billets to forge things from is always good practice. 

Pearly axes didn't even have eyes, like bronze ones and common African axes the found a forked branch and forged esentualty a triangle. Long pointy end and slim curved edge opposite. This was then let in to the swished grain in the knob/knee formed by the fork. If you heat steel to black heat and drive it into an under sized hole it heats the ligum in the wood, making it pliable and sticky. When it cools it holds the steel with great tinasity. Simple no weld axe to cut fuel wood wile you practice your welds an ads is similar, just turn the axe head 90deg.

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