Mokume gane to steel?

[Golden_eagle]

Can you fuse Mokume gane to steel?

Can it be done? and if so; how hard is it to do?

[EdCaffreyMS]

It can be soldered to steel, but "fusing" it (something like a forge weld) would be a difficult task....and may not be possible at all. Your dealing with a an iron based alloy (the steel) and non-iron based material (the mokume). The melting point of the mokume is considerably lower than the welding temp of the steel. I have never heard of it being done, and if it were, I would suspect that it would require very specialized equipment.
Pinning, soldering, or attaching with screws are all options that would be far less labor intensive that attempting to "fuse" the two.

[ThomasPowers]

What about silver soldering or silver brazing it to steel?

[Golden_eagle]

At this point my shop is rather limited, how much would a brazing rig cost?

[EdCaffreyMS]

Brazing can be done with an oxy/acty rig. The problems you run into with brazing is the temps required (1200F+), with these kind of temps you run a big risk of ruining the blades temper.......and the color of the braze material is going to be light to dark gold color depending on the specific braze you use, and extremely difficult to clean up.

My recommendation it to use a low melt silver solder like "Stay-Brite", which only requires about 400F, and can be accomplished with a simple propane torch.

[Jose Gomez]

In the past I have used a heat gun (the type used to strip paint) to silver solder guards and bolsters on to knives. It's not the fastest way, but it is a slow and controllable heat that makes it easy to get the solder to flow without ruining the temper of the blade. You just have to be patient.

[ThomasPowers]

Well nowhere was it mentioned to be a *blade*. I'm sure if he was referring to blades he would have mentioned that very important fact...I hope!

If it's not a heat treated alloy then additional heat is generally not as much an issue though warping can come into play.

[Jose Gomez]

I took for granted that the process will be applied to the manufacture of an edged instrument due to the placement of the post in the bladesmithing section of the forum, but I guess that I should never take anything for granted!

[JPH]

Hello:

I hate to nit-pick but he didn't mention what the mokume-gane was made from..

Mokume-gane means "wood burl metal" and is given to several different materials. Sometimes it is just called Mokume..and can also be used to describe the Hada in a blade, as it resembles burled wood...

We are assuming that he is meaning the non-ferrous material, but he doesn't mention that.

If he is referring to the laminate of various irons and steels that the Mokume Hada has, yes it can be welded to steel...not hard at all...

G.E. please clarify, what material are you refering to? The ferrous or non-ferrous? this would be a great help..

Don't mean to be a pain, just want to know what he is asking...

JPH

[Golden_eagle]

non-ferrous... to be specific: copper and a silver(50%)-aluminum(35%)-copper(15%) alloy, Nanolaminate. so silver brazing is gonna be the best choice... need to compleat that HHo brazing torch, Anyone know of a place to get silver?

[Dave Leppo]

us quarters 1964 or older are silver. Check your couch!

[Chuck Richards]

Fine Silver can be had at any jewelery supply outfit. Rio Grande is the place I use. If you are looking for silver braze this is a different animal. It can be purchased form McMaster Carr or MSC.

[wolfy9005]

whats the melting point of the alloy? i know copper is around 2500C and aluminium either 1000C or 2000C(not sure, but they add something to it in manufacture and it reduces it's melting temp) and silver is even lower.

So i guess silver solder would be your only way, unless the melting point is found to be higher(ie. manageable with a small gas torch)

[Graham Fredeen]

2500 C for copper and 1000-2000C for aluminum!? Not even close, try again, thats way way too hot! Copper is about 1100 C or 2000 F, and aluminum is only around 660C or about 1220 F. Do a quick search before posting wrong info.

The other thing to keep in mind with brazing or soldering is whether the blade has already been heat treated. If you are going to be brazing a heat treated blade, you will over heat the blade and ruin the HT. If the blade still needs HT, you will probably end up un-soldering/brazing the piece. Some things to keep in mind. Silver solder works very well since it melts around the temperature you want to temper at anyways (400F) and will not ruin your HT.

[wolfy9005]

Copper - Wikipedia
i stand corrected, i read boiling point, not melting point

Aluminium - Wikipedia
for this i was going from memory but i guess i was thinking about refinement from bauxite

i apologize for posting incorrect information, but it was late and i didnt wanna do a 5 second search :/

[ThomasPowers]

Note that he means the *soft* silver containing solders like stay-brite. (they only have around 5% silver in them) Not the jewelers hard solders that melt in the glowing temps! Which IIRC old british silver coins could be used for a medium grade of hard solder.

[Golden_eagle]

I found two 1963 quarters.... not that much silver to be harvested....

[Graham Fredeen]

Thanks for that clarification Thomas, since there is a big difference between the soft low temp silver solder and the hard silver jewelers solder. Pure silver wont melt until around 1750F ish, so it wont be good for this type of application, unless you were to HT after brazing.

[Golden_eagle]

Just checked the earlier pages; Tom- yes it is to a blade but also to a Tang. I'll try to get the prelemenary graphics, (i'm planning to make the Knive for the 1st anny. of the forge)