January 5, 20188 yr Wood ash/straw ash is another one of the high heat fluxes; as generally they use a high silica containing ash and so we are back to sand/powdered glass/dirt dauber fluxes.... If you are using true mild steel and welding very hot they can work for you---but all the silica fluxes are much harder to remove than Borax ones where you can just boil the piece to remove them. Or to put is another way; much easier to learn with a flux that's easy to use than with one that takes excellent forge welding skills.
January 5, 20188 yr every time you forge make a few links on a chain. even if the welds are no good make them into rough links and add them to the chain. in a few years time you'll have a literal visual representation of your journey into forge welding. From one end with mishapen poor welded links to the other with perfect looking links with perfect welds. I am currently doing this, i just havent gotten to the good part of the chain to post it. So far it's a visual representation of how im still learning to forge weld!
January 5, 20188 yr Charcold I like the idea when I can get to it next I'm going to start that thanks
January 5, 20188 yr no problem, i stole the idea from a fellow on another board! forging the chain also has the bonus of forging memories of failures more clearly and in sequential order which i find helps keep my mind straight moving forward, at least a bit more than trying forge welds on random scraps that you dont care about.
January 13, 20188 yr the biggest problem I have seen with people trying to forge weld is heat. You have to get a good saturating heat. That means you metal has to be the same heat and the right temperature. With out over heating.
January 15, 20188 yr On 1/5/2018 at 11:11 AM, Charcold said: every time you forge make a few links on a chain. even if the welds are no good make them into rough links and add them to the chain. in a few years time you'll have a literal visual representation of your journey into forge welding. From one end with mishapen poor welded links to the other with perfect looking links with perfect welds. I am currently doing this, i just havent gotten to the good part of the chain to post it. So far it's a visual representation of how im still learning to forge weld! I started my chain yesterday. My idea is to just do a link at each forging session , build 7 link chains, then join them to the main chain. So the chain would not be in strict chronological order, but the seven link sections would be.
January 15, 20188 yr May I suggest that you do sets of 3 links at each forge session. The first link gets you started, the second link confirms your moving in the right direction, and link 3 which joins links 1 and 2 actually is where the learning takes place. This is where you have to handle 3 links AND make a good link and weld. Next session make 3 more links and then join the new section of 3 links to the chain.
January 18, 20188 yr My plan is to add 7 link assemblies to the chain. Going higher than this looks like it would start being an exercise in material handling.
January 18, 20188 yr Figure out how many links can be handled, or hung up for display, in a comfortable manner. Let us say 3x7 + 2 or 23 links total. Paint the first link of the first set, the second link of the second set, third link of the third set, etc. to keep track of your progress. This is still chain and you will want to proof test your work at some point. Pretty is one thing, pulling is another. (grin)
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