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Posted

Today in class, I decided to TRY to recreate Alec Steele's Spatula project...
(metal used 1" square steel)
I spent about an hour thirty just drawing the metal down to a nice handle, when i began to understand how much shorter mine was then his, which is one of those happy accidents I make from time to time. I have a small pan anyway....

Anyhow flash forward to the point where I have to made the wide thin part for the flipping, I tell you I put my SOUL into this metal and it just wouldn't budge, maybe I didn't have enough material built up for it? maybe i didn't hit it hard enough (spoiler - I did (serval goes with a 4 & 5LB hammer.) and I just wouldn't flatten anymore. I finally call it a day (my propane tank was starting to grow weak) and am calling the first attempt at the failed fliping part the handle, ill try again when i can round up 20 bucks for more propane i guess...

In the mean time, enjoy these photos & any ideas help. 
other various problems
*Metal not getting hot enough regardless to how long in forge. (most ive seen in a nice orange, maybe once a yellow shade on a feather of metal)
*bottom of forge turns into a goop like paste after about 1H 30M (Its still a dull red though, it just starts making anything in forge stick & have this residue on it??) ((Upon cooling  fixed itself)
* Also sorry for bad photos
*also my hardie doesn't fit in the hole (i just need to fill it down but i cant find a file...)
*i cant figure out how to upload a video but if i could you would see 1. poor hammer swings 2. Metal abuse. 3. just how odd the forge heats & the color I spoke of above 4. probs something else I dont know about

Thank you just for reading the spew of words of above))
473696463_1583934145589239_4638022107770804446_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=0024fc&_nc_ohc=wxYi6Pm0jhAQ7kNvgHisqav&_nc_ad=z-m&_nc_cid=0&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.xx&oh=03_Q7cD1gFHAWTxXgt6C0Wpveg2lJLC1GMAjTI1mGYRT_nrYeDLPw&oe=67B151AD473633740_911122557867758_1163586698399251417_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=0024fc&_nc_ohc=HOS124ms71sQ7kNvgFGzenJ&_nc_ad=z-m&_nc_cid=0&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.xx&oh=03_Q7cD1gEPGLRA1GqN1eqahn9gNp2gmB-Zvcnxxl3GUZbv2PV2Sw&oe=67B1252B

I spelt several wrong : (

Posted

Normal enough problems Ebin, we'll help you get your forge tuned and see if there's something else happening. What kind of forge are you using? If I'm not mistaken a good friend of mine uses the 2 burner version and welds in it routinely. 

A pic of the interior through opening shortly after you light it so we can get a look at the burner flames. Then another after it's HOT. Another pic of the whole forge including the burners, burners behave differently and some have their own quirks.

A pic across the opening from the side against a dark background so we can see how much and what kind of dragon's breath it has. From the one pic it looks like more than I like but it's not a good angle. 

Are both ends of your forge open like that? If so close them up leaving just a little opening so exhaust gasses can escape without causing too much back pressure. 

How much forge welding have you tried in it and how much flux did you use? The floor shouldn't be melting at that temp but if a lot of flux has been spilled on it the refractory's melting temp goes way down. 

The fix for that is easy and there may be lower cost ways than the factory relining kit.

That's just a first glance evaluation from me, let us see more pics, we'll talk and get it roaring for you.

Frosty The Lucky.

Posted
1 hour ago, Frosty said:

Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks boss! Ill make sure to get you those photos Tuesday when we go back to class.

as for the forge welding, none to my knowledge has been done it was bought 5+ years ago used once or twice then left to sit in a old fridge we use as a "air tight" storage.

Its the 3 burner multipurpose from Majestic forge, I changed a few seals & cleaned out some soot, the liner has 100% seen better days but it still seems fine. 
Both ends are open and dont shut, but i could place a metal plate or something over it easy peasy.

The floor is just odd? Its never done this before today but ive also never run this long until today.
Thank you again and ill either add onto this post or make another with those photos

Posted

What thickness (thinness) have you actually achieved so far?   If it's mild steel it should be possible (but very labor intensive) to work it cold and thin it out with the right tools and techniques.   You may want to work along an edge with blows that are about half on/half off the steel (but fully on the table of the anvil) to see if you are getting anything done.   Sometimes you are doing more than you think, but it's difficult to detect small increments of movement.

As for the "floor goo," there are 2 things I've seen that can make that happen.  The first, as Frosty explained, is the use of flux for forge welding.  The other is the use of refractory cement or mortar as a flame impingement surface.  In both cases they get sticky at heat and then turn into a hard, almost glass-like, substance when cooled.

When you are working really thin stock it is sometimes best to not have a screaming hot forge.  It's really easy to overheat or burn thin sections of steel.  As long as it's mild steel there's not much down side to working it a little too cool - just the wear and tear on your arm.  If it's medium carbon or high carbon steel, then working it too cool can result in cracking.

Posted

Please no videos, they don't show as much as a decent still pic. Majestic makes a good forge so it's a probably burner tuning issue or perhaps the liner is shot. A pic of the interior through the large doorway cold will tell us a lot. 

When you said "1" square" above were you talking about 1" x 1" square stock? :o You were using the flat face of a hammer on the anvil's face too weren't you? Do you hate your arm? That's power hammer territory.

Try this while we get  your forge tuned. Instead of using the face of the anvil draw down on the horn and hopefully you have a cross pein or rounding hammer, use the pein to do the majority of moving the stock and the face only to flatten it. 

Steel is a plastic material, it will flow under sufficient pressure. We aren't strong enough to make it flow, we can't develop enough power so, clever monkeys we are we use heat to impart the power in the form of heat. The hotter steel is the more malleable it becomes, a thermal plastic so to speak. A hammer in hand converts the velocity we impart into PSI on impact.

Pounds Per Square inch, yes? So how do you increase the absolute pressure having limited power to impart velocity? Reduce the area of impact. Hmmmm? PSI is a linear ratio, so impact with a smaller area. The pein on a hammer is a specialty shape and the probably most common is a "cross pein" or engineer's hammer a "flat" face on one end and a rounded wedge mounted crossways to the handle. 

So if you lay your high orange / low yellow HOT steel on the anvil's horn and strike it with the pein of a cross pein in line with the horn you are applying force to the steel between 2 wedges and it WILL move perpendicular to the pein / horn. You are applying the same energy to a smaller area that moves the steel two directions, perpendicular to the pein / horn. 

The flat face on the anvil's face is not only a larger area dividing psi evenly it has to move ALL the steel simultaneously in 4 directions further dividing how much it can reduce thickness. Make sense so far?

So, using the pein strike a pattern that leaves indentations that look like cogs on a gear. Then using the face drive the cogs down flat. The HOT steel will MOSTLY take the path of least resistance, the pein wedges the steel wider and penetrates to a greater depth, then when you drive the ridges down with the face it widens again. The tops of the ridges are a smaller area so the face imparts greater force for the same energy. 

You will feel and hear when it is forged flat again. This brings up another very important skill the smith must develop, observation. You must pay attention to a number of things at once, sound is near the top of the list. How the hammer's impact on steel sounds tells you things you can NOT see. This applies to any struck tool to a lesser degree. How the impact feels both through tongs, directly held stock as well as how the hammer feels through the handle.

Sound and feel tells you the internal condition of the stock, mainly where it is in it's heat cycle, or if you are forging it cold if it's hardening and when it's time to normalize. Working HOT sound and feel tells you when it's time to go back into the fire. Yes?

Vision only tells you where and how the stock is moving. For example say you're forging down a piece of 1/2" sq. steel into a uniform taper and it curves away from you. This is telling you your hammer is NOT striking parallel with the face of the anvil. The term I use is "Heeling" the hammer, meaning the hammer face is striking with the handle side low. Towing is the opposite, the far side of the hammer is low. You can cant it left or right as well. The steel must bend away from the low side of the hammer's face. Make sense?

Once you get a handle on the above you can use it to your advantage. Late, great and much missed, Uri Hoffi taught and designed hammers to be used in exactly this way to the point that the edges of the face were rounded to act as peins. 

Now I'm rambling, I tend to do that.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

 

 

 

Posted
1 hour ago, Frosty said:

Frosty The Lucky.

Yes its 1" x 1" square stock, i was using the flat of hammer on the anvils edge to draw it out, (which i learned in Alec Steele's spatula video if you want to see (I know i dont describe it that well)) 
For the fliping part of the spatula I was flat hammer blows on the anvils face though.
I know a little about hammer shapes? (I probably have a few of those hammer shapes though) but a lot of what you said was mumbo jumbo to me (ill research hammers and re read it)
As for sound I know how important it is to the forge, but never knew about it for the metal sounds.
 

5 hours ago, Buzzkill said:

What thickness (thinness) have you actually achieved so far?  

Less then 1/16? I tried to measure it and was pretty off from there? maybe about a few sheets of paper?

Posted

Understandable Ebin, breaking in to a new craft means learning the craft's language, Jargon. It's all a process and takes time. Alec is a fine smith, much better than I but You need to remember he's British and uses very different terminology and descriptive phraseology. When accomplished smiths in America watch and listen we're translating based on what we're seeing. I'd use an example or two but I haven't watched any of Alec's videos in a while.

What I told you sounded like mumbo jumbo because I was speaking, west coast North American, just like you speak Texican and folk on the East coast speak their version. I made it sort of a personal quest to get as many people on earth let alone the USA using the same blacksmith's jargon.

Sorry, I'm also known for being pretty windy. Tell us what I said you didn't understand and we'll take it one thing at a time.

Frosty The Lucky.

Posted
36 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Frosty The Lucky.

Your fine its just a lack of vocab on my part, i studied my hammers a little today and upon second reading understood what you meant

Posted

Windy?? but not a Gale Force!!  LOL

Square, Octagonal, Round (SOR) is the rule of procedure for 'Drawing something out' Making it thinner and longer. If you wish to learn how to manipulate metal (steel?), get a small container of 'Play-Doh' or Plasticene or modelling Clay. They all work the same!! You can manipulate with your fingers, exactly the same as hot metal at the Anvil. You can use Play-Doh at the Anvil with your Hammer, to learn how and what is happening. The Hammer in the picture above, has many edges or shapes, depending on what angle you are holding the Hammer. It is a lot better to learn with smaller material and a smaller Hammer.

Hammer effort is weight x speed(squared). Yes, if you learn to keep your thumb off the top of the Hammer Handle, you can whip the Hammer and gain more velocity, starting with a lighter Hammer. Velocity squared gives more effort than with a Heavier Hammer!! The art of Hammer Control has not a simple time frame!!

Neil

Posted

Good deal Ebin. Helping new folk get thoroughly addicted to blacksmithing is why a lot of us hang out here. 

Like puns? :ph34r:

Frosty The Lucky.

Posted

Good Morning,

Pardon me, I forgot my Manners!!

Welcome to our world!! from the West Coast of Vancouver Island. I can see your Country every morning, 21 Miles away.

It may sometimes sound like we are a little Gruff, we aren't. Some of us are just "Ol' Goats" LOL

Neil

Posted
10 minutes ago, swedefiddle said:

'Play-Doh' or Plasticene or modelling Clay.

Ill give that a shot, thank you!
 

 

4 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Like puns? :ph34r:

I guess? Never really heard any?

Posted

Good Morning,

Forge not getting Hot, after Forging for quite awhile. Propane Tank is freezing up. Put your Propane Tank in a garbage can that has water in it. The water acts as a Heat Sink and slows down the freezing.

Neil

Posted

Puns are a type of word game where a word in a sentence may have different meanings that once pointed out or altered, substituted with a different word that changes the meaning, etc. and causes readers to groan.

A common blacksmithing word that is a pun in itself is, "upsetting." In the blacksmith's jargon upsetting is the opposite of drawing out, you hammer the steel back into itself shortening and thickening it. It's called other things too but no matter what you call the process it can be really difficult and screw ups are the norm when learning which can be very upsetting.

Upsetting can be upsetting so don't get upset or you'll look thicker than when you started.

Puns can be very punishing to those who don't play. :rolleyes:

Frosty The Lucky.

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