billyO Posted February 1 Posted February 1 On a mildly related note, has anyone ever seen this before? To me and another smith in the shop it looks like some wrought iron was recycled into this piece of hot rolled 1" x 1/2" flat bar. What do you think? (Sorry for the mildly out of focus 2nd pic. probably too much coffee this morning.) Quote
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted February 1 Posted February 1 Sure looks like it to me, maybe a spark test would confirm that. I can’t control the wind. All I can do is adjust my sails. ~Semper Paratus~ Quote
Frosty Posted February 2 Posted February 2 Looks like it to me too. I wonder what went into the scrap stream to leave visible clues like that? An old water tower or iron bridge trestle maybe? Frosty The Lucky. Quote
billyO Posted February 2 Author Posted February 2 Thanks all. I wonder too. Reminds me of something I saw when I was starting to get into smithing about 17 yrs ago. I was helping my mentor on a large gate project where he was forging out a 10' bar of 1" x 3" flat bar under his #250 Chambersburg. My job was to hold the free end of the bar he wasn't forging spinning it as needed and dancing around the shop while he was moving the hot end around the dies. As the piece got down to about <1/2" thick, suddenly a ball bearing popped out of the bar like, almost like popping a pimple. We (obviously) stopped forging, and I asked Terry what happened, and he replied that his best guess was that the crucible melting the scrap probably didn't get hot enough long enough to completely melt everything and the ball bearing into solution and it got incorporate into the billet as is. Quote
Mike BR Posted February 2 Posted February 2 Call me a skeptic, but it strikes me as unlikely that a piece of wrought would survive melting and rerolling sufficiently intact to come out with that coarse a grain structure. On the other hand, I'm fairly confident that wrought was produced in 1/2" X 1" flat bar back in the day. Is it possible someone somewhere in the supply chain cleaned out a really dark corner? Quote
Goods Posted February 3 Posted February 3 It could also be a defect from the mill. We run through a lot of steel coils every day and see lamination defects maybe once a month. It’s rare, but it does happen… keep it fun, David Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.