Coffee etching :]

 

Thanks for the detailed reply,  your numbers are very exciting, I'd love to give your knives a go at my work. I've had a very chippy knife in aogami super, I bought it when I was an apprentice 64 rockwell I think.  Some of the knives I've made lately been a bit too hard to sell to other chefs so I keep the rock hard ones my myself. 

I can see wootz in my near future,  how viable is waste veg oil for firing a crucible melt thingo? 

On 5/28/2022 at 11:05 AM, TravisM said:

thingo

  Cupola, furnace, melter?  Curiosity drives me to ask.    Help, I am here to learn....

  Didn't mean to kill the conversation.  I have a cupula book by gingery and am thinking of building it in my spare time until things get situated.  I'd have to do it in the driveway for now.  There is magnetic sand around here.  Should I procede?

Cupola is for cast iron, magnetic sand is for bloomeries; which one are you thinking about?  (Or to quote Big Trouble in Little China---"Marry them both!")

I want to build a cupola and the magnetic sand comment was a lame joke about my new surroundings.  My nephew was running around with a shovel and magnet.    Sorry about that one.  There is a foundry near here I can get scrap iron from but have to pay for it.    

  Now I will look for a topic about magnetic sand.  I might try smelting it after all.  Unless it requires tonnage.

  I have seperate forge and foundry/melter with interchangable burners (thanks to a member suggestion) already and thought I would branch out and learn something new.  I tried melting steel once in the melter but it just got soft.  Never tried iron yet.  Maybe I should start a new thread of my own....

  Correction:  The book I have is by Stephen  Chastain, not Gingery.

I have J.E.Hurst "Melting Iron in the Cupola"  and  "Cupola Practice and Mixing Cast Iron" a Lindsay reprint.

  I know your on the road but I still better warn you not to get me started on Linsay reprints.  I'm a big fan.  Lot of fun and interesting information to be had...  i have a whole box of old catalogs.  Worth it just for the back cover.....

Well one Christmas my wife asked me for gift suggestions so I ticked off a lot of the cheaper reprints in the L catalog and told her to just buy me one---she bought them all for me!

  Wonderful! 

  I always thought the prices reasonable for what you get.  I passed along many of mine after I got my use out of them.  

  "Exceptional technical books published for the enlightment of experimenters, inventors, tinkerers, mad scientists, “Thomas-Edison-types,” and individuals of high energy and intellect."

  You just have to exersise safety as a lot of it has danger of poisoning, incineration, electrocution, asphyxiation etc... 

Edited June 24, 20224 yr by Nodebt
Add asphyxiation

On 1/14/2020 at 12:57 PM, DanielC said:

I forged that puck out but it contained a void that stretched with the bar and didnt show up until I had a bar about a foot long.

I remelted it with other material and Manganese addition. The puck has recieved REM treatment and is ready to be forged out.

Sorry to maybe revive an older thread, but I wanted to bring a source of info that may help. I recently have been doing some research and found a video series by Peter Burt on youtube where he goes almost step by step into the process of making crucible steel and then forging it out successfully. Even without having to do build a decarb layer.

The specific video he says this in is: Wootz: ForgingTemps, 1st edition
Its from a couple years ago and he has other videos on the topic including pattern development, and proper forging so that you dont wind up with voids in your material.

Not sure if this may be useful since I havent worked (yet) with this material so I thought Id toss it up and see what you thought.

 

I'm waiting for some lifting and pouring Crucible tongs to arrive to try this all out.