Where did I go wrong with this pattern welding?

[Andrew Collington]

Hi there,

I've never tried pattern welding metal before, and I've also never used stainless steel before.  But my wife thought it'd be nice to have a "simple damascus necklace" and it seemed like stainless steel was a good enough way to go, so figured I'd knock off two complete unknowns for me in one go.
Needless to say, it didn't go well. 

I started with about 1m of 304 and 316 and cut it roughly evenly.  I sanded off all the rough edges from cutting and cleaned the surfaces with acetone.  I stacked and welded them together as best I could (don't look too closely at the welds - it's only the second time I've ever tried welding anything!)  I got the metal warm and sprinkled with borax then brought it up to temperature (well, what I guess was temperature, anyway).  Then I did some light blows to try to set the weld, repeated with a little more borax, heat, light taps, heat, then basically tried to give it some wellie to solidify.  (Mostly I hit it square, but still need to practice better hammer control.)

However, anytime I set to hit the metal harder the layers would start to peel apart.  So I'd try a little more flux and reheat, light blows, heat, hard blows.  I also tried compressing it in my leg vice with some angle iron, just to try to spread a bit more even pressure across the stack than my hammering would.

In the end, though, all I made was an unholy mess with layers of metal all peeled apart.

So I wondered if anyone could give a little advice for if I try this again?

Was my procedure flawed?  Is there a different way of working for stainless steels?  Is the metal worth sanding down flat (lots of bad hammer blows on parts of them somewhat because I was tired but I think mostly because I was venting frustration ) and trying again?  I know I wouldn't be able to tell the two metals apart, but that might just make for a more interesting pattern if I pull it off.  Or should I just scrap all of that?  Is there a better choice of metal for metals for pattern welded jewellery?

Wow, that's a lot of questions!  But any advice for a newbie is always appreciated.  Thanks!

Andy

[ThomasPowers]

Stainless steels are very hard to forge weld and usually take lots of experience and a TOXIC flux to get through the oxide coating that makes them stainless!

Basically this reads to me as "Hi I've never driven a car before so I plan to go rally racing on iced over mountain roads for my first go at it. What could go wrong!

Perhaps a mokume gane (basically nonferrous pattern welding) necklace would do if you don't want non-stainless pattern welding, say pure nickel and wrought iron?

[Andrew Collington]

4 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Basically this reads to me as "Hi I've never driven a car before so I plan to go rally racing on iced over mountain roads for my first go at it. What could go wrong!

Yep, I think that pretty much sums it up what I was trying to do perfectly! 

I'll have a look at doing some mokume gane next with nickel and wrought iron as you suggested.  I'm assuming that's pretty much the same procedure?  I'll go watch some videos and read some articles on it before attempting anything this time.   Thanks for your feedback, Thomas Powers!

Edited December 22, 2020 by Mod44
@ feature removed. Per Site Guidelines, use of @ feature not permitted.

[Buzzkill]

As a side note, I'm not sure there's enough of a difference between 304 and 316 to give much contrast even if you do manage to get those 2 forge welded.  Since the whole point of pattern welding is to see the pattern afterwards, you want to ensure your starting materials will provide the contrast you are looking for.  A more or less standard combination for knife making is 15N20 and 1095 steels.  These weld well together, produce good contrast, and still have the characteristics desirable in blade steel after welding.

Since you are going for something "purty" rather than functional, I'd second TP's suggestion of mokume gane.  A stack of quarters might give you the desired result here.

[ThomasPowers]

Wrought iron is ferrous and so not mokume gane; but pattern welding of ferrous and mokume gane of nonferrous metals are both solid state welding processes.  Being nonferrous, mokume gane may make for better jewelry,  Do enquire about nickel sensitivity with the intended recipient!

This is the time of year when we generally get a lot of "I need to do a complex time consuming process with no training in it and have a gift worthy result in 3 days!" posts, I would like to point out that spending Christmas at the A&E is NOT a good thing!

(Buzz, US quarters in the UK may be a bit more difficult to source...)

[Buzzkill]

True TP.   I failed to observe the location.  If they have coins similar to ours the principle still applies.  Otherwise I guess it's sourcing nickel, copper, etc in small sheets to get the same effect.

[Andrew Collington]

Great responses, thanks!

Thankfully this isn't a "I have to rush to get it done for Christmas" thing, more a "I have time off for Christmas and want to spend it at the anvil trying things out", so no rushing... Just the obvious lack of experience. 

You're right, Buzzkill, it's just for something "purty".  Never would have thought to use a stack of quarters!  It's ever-so-slightly illegal to deface UK coins here... but I'm sure the UK government wouldn't mind me defacing American coinage .  My wife's American so we try to get back there once a year and quarters usually make it back with us, so this could be perfect! 

Going to chalk the stainless steel up as a fun but failed experiment and not something to try again for a while (at least not until I've learned to drive rally cars on ice )

Edited December 22, 2020 by Mod30
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[ThomasPowers]

Here in the USA you cannot deface coins and then try to use them as coins---dates back to when coins were made of bullion and all sorts of ingenious ways were developed to remove "just a bit" of the silver or gold were figured out.  You can make jewelry out of them with no problem.

Does the prohibition in the UK extend to old coins as well?  I once made a pectoral cross from "30 pieces of silver"  using worn old silver coins from around the world, including a couple where you could just make out Queen Victoria on them... I learned from a friend who had hallmarking privilege's that the old ones could be used as a "medium silver solder" too...

[Andrew Collington]

Interestingly, anything before 16th May 1969 you're OK to do whatever with, and that sounds like a really interesting project you did! Any photos of it?

Here they say you can't melt metal coins down or break them apart, but don't then go on to say "and reuse as legal tender" (though I'm sure that was the intention).

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/24/section/10

[ThomasPowers]

That project was about 20+ years ago and I've had several system crashes since then; so unfortunately no pictures. However it was for a Lutheran Minister, ELCA, being sent to the UK so it's possible you might run across it there.  Too heavy for regular wear; but a good processional cross for Easter.

How I did it was to buy "scrap metal bullion coins" from pawnshops and then stack them in various layouts till I got the one I liked and then silver soldered the entire thing together.  As might be expected some of the foreign coins were not sterling or even 90%.  (A couple from Finland when it was under Russian control were particularly "bad"; as I remember they turned into a ball and rolled away when we hit them with a torch.) I was trying to use coins from as many countries as possible  and well worn so not instantly recognizable from a distance for symbolic reasons.

 

[George N. M.]

From the US Department of the Treasury website: "Section 331 of Title 18 of the United States code provides criminal penalties for anyone who “fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the Mints of the United States.” This statute means that you may be violating the law if you change the appearance of the coin and fraudulently represent it to be other than the altered coin that it is. As a matter of policy, the U.S. Mint does not promote coloring, plating or altering U.S. coinage: however, there are no sanctions against such activity absent fraudulent intent."

So, to run afoul of the law you have to have a fraudulent intent, such as altering the date or mint mark to make a common coin resemble a rare coin so that it can be sold at a higher price.  It also covers "clipping" which is a time honored practice dating to ancient times when a "clipper" would remove a bit of silver or gold from a coin and pass it on for its original value.  In time, the clippings would add up to a considerable amount. This is why coins that were formerly made of precious metals have "reeding," the serrations on the edge.  These revealed any attempt at clipping.

"By hammer an hand all arts do stand."

[Frazer]

However, if you find a US quarter from 1964 or earlier (very unlikely in the UK..) you may want to hold on to that one. They are ~90% silver. I found one once. I noticed it was different as I was bouncing off a table playing a.. game. in college and I noticed it sounded quite different than a normal quarter. That one went in my pocket. 

[BillyBones]

The 65-70 half dollar and the 71-76 Eisenhower are both 40% silver. Also war time nickels, 42-45, were made with 35% silver, these can be identified by the large mint mark over the dome of the capital on the reverse. 

[SLAG]

SLAG,   here,

A little bit of extraneous fact for the ""reeding" mentioned by counselor, George N M, 

He states and I concur,

" ... This is why coins that were formerly made of precious metals have "reeding," the serrations on the edge.  These revealed any attempt at clipping".

Reeding were first used by the master of the British Mint.  Namely thee Sir Isaac Newton.

It is a simple solution to a vexatious problem that bedeviled people for hundreds if years.

Namely that of clipping.  Some coins were so badly cut up  that they were a fraction of their original size. (that necessitated weighing of each coin, to determine it's actual worth)

The swindle of clipping had been going on for at least a thousand years.

SLAG.

[George N. M.]

Frazer:  I was once in a line at a fast food drive up and was explaining to my passenger the abbreviations, etc., e.g. the federal reserve bank that issued it, on a $10 bill.  I noticed that some of the type size, etc. was a little different and, lo and behold, it turned out to be a series 1934 Silver Certificate.  It went back into my wallet and into my miscellaneous currency collection.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Slag:  There are some ancient Greek and Roman coins that have an early form of reeding, notches struck or filed around the edge.  Real reeding had to wait until the 17th century when machines were invented that could impress fine serrations around the edge of coins and could do it comparatively quickly.  Striking coins mechanically, rather than with hand held dies and a hammer, was one of the early uses for a fly press.  In fact, I became aware of fly presses in a numismatic context before I did in a blacksmithing one. 

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand." 

[elmoleaf]

2 hours ago, BillyBones said:

....and the 71-76 Eisenhower are both 40% silver....

True only of San Francisco minted pieces intended for collectors. The regular 71-78 dated issues are the typical copper nickel clad composition.

[SLAG]

Mr. George, N.M.,

Thank you for your additional "reeding" facts.

I find them invaluable and fascinating.

Merry Christmas coming soon.

If you were situated closer bye,  I would be very pleased to invite and your spouse to our annual, traditional Szechuan Christmas dinner.

(the food does not travel well by the U.S.P.S.).

All the best,

SLAG.

[George N. M.]

Slag,

We would be happy to accept but circumstances beyond our control prevent us from doing so.

Do you have any citations for the idea of medieval people walking with the toe or the ball of the foot touching down first.  I will admit to initial skepticism sine the human foot is evolved to strike the ground first in a stride.  Yes, for dancing or walking slowly and quietly you can slide the foot forward to touch down all at once but heel first is the natural human stride.

Happy (insert holiday of your choice).  May 2021 be better than this year (an admittedly low bar).

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Shabumi]

7 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Wrought iron is ferrous and so not mokume gane; but pattern welding of ferrous and mokume gane of nonferrous metals

I noticed nickel is suggested in both ferrous and nonferrous pattern welding. Has/could someone make a mokume gane/Nickel/wrought-iron/Nickel/mokume gane item? With the nickel/wrought welded first and then the mokume welded to the nickel at a lower temperature.

[ThomasPowers]

The issue would probably be that the wrought iron works differently to the nonferrous metals and so unless all the patterning had been done previously you might not be able to have it hold together after welding to wrought iron and trying to pattern.   Try it and see!

[Shabumi]

Id love to try, but thats well above my pay grade(so far), it was just an amusing thought I had. I'll set this in my back pocket for when my skillset has caught up to my imagination.

George, I've always found my natural gait to be ball first, and my heel hardly ever touches unless I'm standing still or in ski boots. I think it may come from stepping on too many banana slugs barefoot when I would sneek out of bed as a kid. If you hit them heel first you'd go sliding, and your cover was blown. Ball first, they'd just squish between your toes and you just had to grit your teeth to stay quiet.

[BillyBones]

I thought all those Eisenhower's were 40%. Must have missed the SF thing in my brief journey into currency. 

I was trying to buy a pop one day at work and a dime i kept putting in, the machine kept spitting it back out. Upon closer examination it was not a dime at all but a steel penny. I also got a whole bunch of miss printed coins. Won of the neatest is the nickel minted in 201. 

[George N. M.]

Billy:  If you have kept the mis-struck coins they are probably worth some $.  There is a whole sub-set of coin collectors who specialize in error coins.  There are all kinds of errors such as a partial strike where the blank was not properly lined up with the die, double struck where the coin was struck twice, and many others.  Some types are rarer and more valuable than others.

Years ago a friend received a $2 1/2 gold piece at the grocery store in change as a one cent coin.  It was worth about $40 then, probably $250-300 today.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

7 hours ago, Shabumi said:

I noticed nickel is suggested in both ferrous and nonferrous pattern welding. Has/could someone make a mokume gane/Nickel/wrought-iron/Nickel/mokume gane item? With the nickel/wrought welded first and then the mokume welded to the nickel at a lower temperature.

Jim Binnion has done some very different mokume combinations but he's been a leading expert in the craft for way longer than I've known him. Check out his site, Mokume-gane dot com (I think) you can search him by name too. Last I looked he had a gold and iron tea pot on his site. Deb and I wear mokume gane wedding rings: red gold, white gold, yellow gold ad silver in a simple twist pattern. 

If it's metal it can be diffusion welded to another, maybe any other. It may not be a simple process but Jims been doing some crazy neat stuff with reactive metals. Say gold and niobium with the incredible patinations possible on niobium and the unaffected gold for contrast. Crazy wicked neat stuff.

Frosty The Lucky.

[pnut]

10 hours ago, elmoleaf said:

True only of San Francisco minted pieces intended for collectors. The regular 71-78 dated issues are the typical copper nickel clad composition.

I can hear a difference in the sound they make when dropped or they hit another coin before even looking at them.  It's a very distinct sound to my ear. I was handed some change just the other day. I noticed the sound of them clinking in my hand and had three silver quarters. I stopped and asked if they cashed in change for anyone recently? She said yes so I asked for five dollars in quarters to "help" take some of that extra change off her hands. I ended up with four more silver quarters out of the bunch. They were all dated between 61 and 64.

Pnut