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Posted

I`ve spent many hours getting great information from this site. Never thought id need to seek help, but here I am . I've made several pattern welded knifes using 1095 and 15n20 , I have been very lucky  that  I`ve never had any issues  with inclusions or issues other than my own inexperience, that is until recently. Three blades in a row have had inclusions , I`ve went back and reviewed my notes and  trying to figure out what Im doing different. The only thing I can come up with is I recently purchased several bags of coal, In the past I`ve always used  Pocahontas and never any issues. The bagged coal I recently bought i thought was Pocahontas , right away i noticed it was harder to light and only every gets to bright yellow in the forge, where as I could hit near white with old batch of coal. I went back and found pictures on my phone of the bags and never realized the bags were labeled Pennsylvania smithing coal . I got on line and seen that coal is bituminous but in my mind its just not the same. I normally start with seven layers and fold 4 times , on one billet i had completed the second weld and had to leave it in the forge what seemed a long time and it suddenly it cottage cheesed in the forging hammer, my temps seem to be all over place and not evenly coming to temp in the forge . I`m still a rookie at this and I know I have much to lean , so hoping you all have some insight. thanks

Posted

Welcome to your first post from the Ozark mountains...

From your description it sounds to me like the coal you received may be anthracite not bituminous. Does the coal require continues air to keep burning? There is a lot of differences in bituminous coal depending on the different veins it comes from. Pennsylvania smithing coal is a pretty broad term. I suggest calling the distributor that you bought it from to confirm it is bituminous or anthracite. A picture of the new coal would help to ID it.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.~ Semper Paratus

Posted

Welcome aboard Old Goat, glad to have you. Like Randy says there are many kinds and qualities of bituminous coal as there are any grade of coal. With experience you'll be able to manage the fire using different types and grades so there "May" not be anything wrong with your recent sack of coal but any mine hits a bad seam now and then.

As suggested talk to your supplier, or the local blacksmith's club and when you find a good batch buy a bunch, enough to last a few months anyway. When you're breaking into a craft having consistent materials and conditions will really flatten the learning curve for you. You're having to learn about several different things, fire management, steel, hammer control, posture, and so on. All these things are inter-related so you're learning how they interact. If one or more keep changing, everything changes and it can be very difficult to figure out which changed so you can adjust. 

Make sense? 

AND stick with us, we LOVE helping new smiths develop their addiction to playing with fire and hitting things with hammers.;)

Frosty The Lucky.

Posted

There are different grades and properties of coals.  Sometimes impurities in the coal such as sulphur which can interfere with welding or react in bad ways with the alloy elements in steel.  That may be what happened with the blade that "cottage cheesed."  Have you seen any yellowish smoke coming off of the coal, particularly where it is coking on the edge of the fire?  That may be indicative of a high sulphur coal.  Or have you gotten any sulphur smell from it?

And needing more and/or constant air is more indicative of a high grade bituminous or anthracite coal.

I'd ask your supplier if they have a data sheet on the coal which includes sulphur content, agglomeration (coking ability), ash content and analysis, BTUs per weight, etc..  Every coal seam is going to be a bit different.

Every use of burning coal is going to have optimum and negative characteristics.  The western coal mined here in Wyoming is very good fuel for power generation because it is low sulphur (reduces acid rain downwind or the power plant) but is low BTU/ton and is pretty crappy as a blacksmith coal because it does not coke well.

And, yes, I am an old geologist.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Posted

In addition to what has already been suggested, there are a bunch of finesse steps in forge welding billets in a coal fire that you may not even realize you are changing.  You need to have a pretty large fireball to work with so you can keep the entire billet in the neutral to reducing portion of the fire, and not stray into the oxidizing.  The ratio of the size of the billet to fireball can make a great difference.  If the lighting in your shop or ambient outdoor light changes, it can be quite difficult to tell if you have overheated the steel.  Size of the pieces of coal, how quickly you feed green coal in to coke, and even whether the coal is wet or not can change the way it behaves.  

The only time I have had high carbon steel "cottage cheese" on me is when I overheated it and soaked it too long.  If I recall that was with 52100, but I suspect it could happen to any high carbon steel.  Please recall that welding temperatures for high carbon steel are appreciably lower than for mild.  No white hot sparklers are needed.

I apologize if this seems too basic, but you did say that you were a rookie.

Posted

Thank you Gents, amazing amount of experience and knowledge you all have. I believe each of you hit on some  aspects of my Issues .  I had to increase my air flow to keep my temperatures up and seems to be much more smoke, I wasn't paying attention to the smoke color but very possibly more yellow (sulphur content). The smell is certainly different, Cokes up differently and not as well .As far as my cottage cheese issue I certainly believe i over soaked  it because of my temp issues . In the past I would bring my billets up to white hot but not to the sparking stage to set my welds, but now I can get them close but not all the way . I need to up my note taking game because the older I get the less i remember lol. I think my game plan will now fall back and find some different coal , I live in northern Indiana and I will see if I can find some locally , if not  Penn Keystone coal company sells Pocahontas #3 from West Virginia , it would be a 10 hour drive one way but would be worth the trip . I can`t thank you all enough  for taking the time to offer up  the great insight and suggestions .   

p.s Im having difficulty posting pictures, once i figure that out i can add some pictures of the coal.

Posted

Yoder Blacksmith Supply in Fredricksburg, OH is only about four and a half hours from you, so that's another option. You could also meet them partway at Quad-State in Troy, OH, but that's not until next September.

2 hours ago, OldGoat said:

Cokes up differently and not as well

One thing you might consider would be to devote a session or two simply to making coke. That will burn out a lot of the impurities beforehand and possibly give you a more predictable fuel.

Posted

What size pieces are you using? Different grades like different size pieces in the fire. There's a balance between allowing combustion air free movement in the mound and not allowing air and heat to blow right on through. If that makes sense. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Posted

JHCC , thank you excellent info, glad there`s someplace much closer, Ill be giving Yoders a call.,,, Frosty I was using pea size , it has a lot of fines in it and i try to filter those out but that`s a pain, Ill come up with a better plan for that.  At one point i added some nugget  size i have and that only seem to make it worse . I have good air flow i believe. Ill get some different coal and  see what happens. I  appreciate all the really great advice from all of you .

Posted

Good Morning,

Mix the fines in a 5 gal pail with water, make mud. Grab a handful of mud and make small baseballs. Add the balls to the outside of your fire. There is no problem using fines. Easy to Coke up, lots of heat, fines go away. Voila!!

Neil

Posted

I used fines to close the dome around the fire, it prevents as much heat blowing through the pile which helps the dome to coke up. 

Fines just need a different kind of fire management but work just fine provided it's good coal.

Frosty The Lucky.

Posted
On 11/27/2024 at 11:01 PM, OldGoat said:

Ill be giving Yoders a call.

They're Amish, so they don't have a phone in the shop. You call them and leave a message, and they'll call you back.

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Hello All, I made the trip to Fredericksburg Ohio , Yoder's blacksmith supplies.. WOW what a place, amazing ! Blacksmith heaven. Thank you JHCC. I bought 500 lbs. of coal despite the fact the bags weren't labeled and the old timer working didn't know where the coal was from.   I got out in the shop yesterday , the new coal was very hard to start  but once it was going seemed to be better than the other coal I had. It coked nicely and seem to have a higher temp. I'm working on getting a way to accurately   measure my temps . I was just working see if I could savage one of the blades that failed. I realized that all my inclusions  "failed welds" are on tang end of my billets so I'm thinking I'm not getting that end in the fire far enough to bring them to welding temps. I've been reading about stacking verses folding and about fluxes , cleaning and grinding,  wow my head hurts. Its all pretty much what I've been doin g, but I can see some thing s I've done wrong . I've went back and read what you all have suggested so I'm planning on some serious shop sessions next few weeks. Im sure ill be back with question .I attached a pic of the last successful knife just because.  Thank you all again . Merry Christmas to all.

knife #5.jpg

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