The washed out section looks like it was under the burner. Get steel hot enough often enough and the same physics that allows diffusion welding, diffuses the various metals into one alloy.

It also decarbs the surfaces. Carbon is more flammable than iron so the first element to go when heated is the carbon, then scale takes the iron.

The same rules apply to forge welding as do to tig, stick, etc. welding. Keep it CLEAN. The other rules deal with how to do so. Forge welding needs to be clean and FAST with the minimum refining cycles as necessary.

Frosty The Lucky.

Frosty,

No burner. I was using a coal forge. I kept it moving around and rotating. I thought I got a pretty consistent yellow glow.  Your points are taken, though.

16 hours ago, Chad J. said:

Billy, what are the measurements for your finished clap boards?  

1" or 2" thick and either 4"x9" or 3"x6". 

16 hours ago, Frosty said:

Sorry if that's more critique than you were looking for

No not at all. Honest critique is important. I do not even mind bad critique. I would rather get border line hurt feelings than do mediocre work. 

That one, and a couple other of the "heavy" ones will get a couple passes on the slack belt and a good wire brushing on a grinder. I use a larger handle to get a bit more weight on some. I will usually use a half round handle, like a drawer pull, on a standard and a knob on a light one. They will then be given to my mom and my aunt to get their approval. My mom is one of those brutally honest kind of people and will give me good feed back. 

I also use different woods. I do try and stay with exotics though. But like that katalox is a very dense wood and about 4x the weight of pine. So i would use it on a heavy one. Where if i wanted a light one maybe mahogany. I have a pretty good selection of exotic woods and there is a store here that specializes in hard woods and has quite a selection of exotic wood. They also carry oak, maple, hickory, walnut, etc. and their prices are quite good. I bought 75 BF of cherry for $3.50 a BF. 

Edited February 11, 20251 yr by Mod34
Mod edit: removed double post

11 hours ago, Frosty said:

The washed out section looks like...

It could also be the mystery steel I used.  I don't know if you read it, but I wrote that I cut up an old circular saw blade, and it wasn't a premium blade, but it was a cheap freebie.  Grok2 says that it could be A36 or 1018. I didn't do a quench and break test to see if it was hardenable.  I sandwiched it in between 1080.

The cloudiness is just weird.  If we rewind to when it was the original 3/4" x 3/4"  uncut billet, that area would be, what, a 1/2" section toward the tip?

Oh well, this will be my gardening knife. 

19 hours ago, MeltedSocks said:

I need to rethink my die holding system.  I copied it from Coal Iron Works (their 9 ton model), but changing dies takes too long to me.

Here are some pics of the system I came up with, maybe it'll give some ideas:

PS - In case it's not clear, there's a 1/4" square tab under the bottom handle that registers into the holder on the bottom die.

3 hours ago, billyO said:

Here are some pics of the system I came up with, maybe it'll give some ideas

Thanks, billyO!

My crossmember on the bottom is 2" wide, but the upper is only 1" wide, so I'd have to devise a setup that isn't quite as deep as yours.  I already had to redo my flat dies because of a moment arm that was too long.

No idea who or what GROK2 is but seeing as nobody has made circle saw blades from mild steel since WWII, IIRC, his/it's information is suspect. Low carbon steel oxidizes darker graduating lighter as C% rises. That is what causes the pattern in plain Damascus and pattern welded steel.

Chrome, nickel, vanadium, etc. content oxidize differently as well but I'm leaving them out of my above statement as not relevant.

Solid fuel fire suggests to me you positioned the billet too low in the fire, in the more oxidizing zone and centered the billet most if not every heat.

Frosty The Lucky.

Grok-2 is one of the AI assistants. I have read that they are wrong about half the time.

I can’t control the wind. All I can do is adjust my sails. ~Semper Paratus~

I value my credibility more highly than to make public statements based on a 50/50 chance without saying so up front. 

As much as WIKI has improved I still double check before using the posted info.

Frosty The Lucky.

Finally going to admit this here.   I do blacksmithing on the Twitch live stream app once a week for fun.  It is fun too.  I've had smiths from all over the world hop on and we get to talk about different projects and techniques.  It's doing live demos from the comfort of your home forge, except your talking to (yourself) people who log on each week to talk,  laugh, and watch as I work through some new project.  The challenges are planning a something you can complete on the stream, interacting with the people watching, and remembering that some people may be completely new and explaining techniques and answering questions.  Tonight I forged out a triple horseshoe heart hanger, riveted together.  Then I accepted a speed challenge, rough forgng a spike knife in less than 15 minutes.   Got it in under 12.  It's on the right on the picture.

2 hours ago, Frosty said:

I value my credibility more highly than to make public statements based on a 50/50 chance without saying so up front. 

Did I not say up front that "Grok2 said"?  It was simply speculation on my part that the mystery metal could be the culprit, evidence by my statement, "it could be..." 

I don't know if these AI search engines are wrong half the time or not. How would the average Joe even know enough about it to make such an assertion? I heard from a friend or I read on a forum?  As far as I understand, they are massively powerful, scary fast search engines that look at everything out there that's ever been published, then formulate coherent sentences summarizing what  they found.

5 hours ago, Chad J. said:

Got it in under 12

It would take me longer just to get ready to do that. 

10 hours ago, MeltedSocks said:

I don't know if these AI search engines are wrong half the time or not. How would the average Joe even know enough about it to make such an assertion? I heard from a friend or I read on a forum?  As far as I understand, they are massively powerful, scary fast search engines that look at everything out there that's ever been published, then formulate coherent sentences summarizing what  they found.

Not trying to be argumentative, so please don't take it that way.  I have no idea how old you are, but there might be a generational thing going on here.  
Those of us old enough to remember going to the library and looking through the card catalog recognize that back then, if you read something, you could probably assume it was good information because it took quite a bit of effort and resources to publish a book or magazine, and there were editors who were paid to verify facts. 
Nowadays, anyone can post anything without any checks or balances, so one needs to be a bit more discerning and skeptical about what the web says. 
We've also been sold that computers are the answer to everything, when it should be obvious that computers can help find good information, they are also huge garbage dumps.

Having experience in industry with “teaching” AI systems for process controls, AI is only as good as the quality and quality of data that is used in the teaching/learning process. We need to review all data used very carefully. 
With these large internet models, they are just scraping the web for massive amounts of information and there is very little review of that information, it just too much data. Your “crazy neighbor’s” facebook comments could be a source of information, not to mention the large amount of propaganda out there… Just be skeptical of AI responses.

Keep it fun,

David

19 hours ago, Frosty said:

Low carbon steel oxidizes darker graduating lighter as C% rises. That is what causes the pattern in plain Damascus and pattern welded steel.

My experience is exactly opposite.  Hardened high carbon steel etches dark/black, with low carbon steel etching as gray.

1 hour ago, Buzzkill said:

My experience is exactly opposite.  Hardened high carbon steel etches dark/black, with low carbon steel etching as gray.

Agreed, but the operative word here is Hardened.  In my experience with un-hardened damascus (I always peek at the pattern post grinding and pre-HT) is that the 15N20 etches darker than the 1084 I use.

And in re-reading the thread about the etching, did you grind through all the decarb before etching?  It's my understanding that even under the most exacting temperature controls this decarb layer can be up to 1mm deep

The very term "AI" is a marketing ploy. AI is just incredibly complex programing, putting 20,000 "if then" commands in a line of code instead of 5 doesn't make it intelligent. JUST complex, more useful probably but certainly not intelligent.

How about if a person is basing a statement on a search engine just say you're speculating. Assuming readers knows one word out of a R.A Heinlein novel is a really complicated search engine is just that. You're ASSUMING everybody knows the info is a coin toss.

I got that backwards again Billy? DANG voices are messing with me again. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

On 2/12/2025 at 7:49 AM, billyO said:

I have no idea how old you are

Almost 62.  Boomer.  But having know-it-all GenX/millenial kids kept me in the loop. 

On 2/12/2025 at 8:17 AM, Goods said:

We need to review all data used very carefully. 

Yep.  I've had to correct Grok2 on a few occasions.  It replied something like, "Yes, you are correct. My apologies." So, at least it's not a know-it-all, too. 

14 hours ago, Frosty said:

You're ASSUMING everybody knows the info is a coin toss.

Not necessarily a coin toss.  If I heard from someone that there was a tornado the day before yesterday in Pensacola and AI tells me that there was indeed a tornado in an industrial park at 4:20 pm, the information is probably correct  If I ask about something controversial, e.g., vaccines and autism, that's when you should be skeptical and discerning.

I asked Grok2 why my Damascus knife had a cloudy area in it.  It basically stated what many of you wrote, so it's probably correct info.

It probably says that because IFI is the largest, most trafficked blacksmithing site on the web so of course it agrees with the general consensus it just collects and corelates data.

Playing linear extrapolation and semantic games is boring, non productive and doesn't demonstrate anything flattering.

I think I'll just watch and look at pics.

Frosty The Lucky.

So Saturday is the UMBA Winter conference and the trade item theme was flowers.   Tonight I revisited my farrier nail flower I tried last year, making a small boquet and the case from a 1 inch piece of pipe.  

12 hours ago, Frosty said:

It probably says that because IFI is the largest, most trafficked blacksmithing site on the web so of course it agrees with the general consensus it just collects and corelates data.

Playing linear extrapolation and semantic games is boring, non productive and doesn't demonstrate anything flattering.

I think I'll just watch and look at pics.

Frosty The Lucky.

That and the bladesmithsforum have indeed most (and also correct and in depth) info on this topic on the internet indeed.

Lucky for us. Try gardening in your backyard and the info you get will probably contradict each other.

On 2/12/2025 at 9:01 PM, Frosty said:

putting 20,000 "if then" commands in a line of code instead of 5 doesn't make it intelligent. JUST complex, more useful probably but certainly not intelligent.

 

Frosty, this seems to be the case not only in machines, but in people as well! 

I know that in my shop, the if-thens sometimes fall prey to my curiosity of "maybe this time it will be different?" - and therefore, the first aid kit. 

Nice flower and . . . Case?

Spell check or a miskey strikes again eh? Thank you for the morning typo straight line and smile.

Frosty The Lucky.

Drats, I was too slow to edit the above post. <sigh>

I'm not a blade maker Gewoon, so hardly look at the bladesmith fora, last I looked it seemed pretty dead but that was during Covid and everything was dead.

People have been adding useless pre and suf-fixes to words for maybe centuries or longer, maybe they think it makes them look smarter or better educated. However I've seen it in extremis in academics so it's probably learned in school.

Frosty The Lucky.

I have no faith in AI, they can't even manage to not change words I type.  It should be vase.

We're on that page alright. Remember when you could do a search without a couple pages of, "you might be interested in" commercials? I bought a new laptop when my old one was damaged by the computer tech I paid to work on it but I think it was a design flaw more than letting the screen flop back.

Anyway, the ads are built into this computer and every time the OS updates it turns off my preferences for the ones directing me to things I might be interested in. <grrrr> Worse than that the OS is the one that came with it M$ 365 at the moment and it actively screws with anything not M$ I load. I managed to load Duck duck go browser and email server but every time the OS updates I have to go through it and argue with M$.

I Really REALLY wish my computer would just do what I tell it to and not make constant suggestions. 

Sorry for the rant everybody but AI REALLY gripes me!

Frosty The Lucky.