mig Welding spring steel handles

[Fdisk]

Would it be ok to mig weld handles madw outa spring steel to a blade made outa spring steel before its heat treated and if it is after thay are welded would i nead to aneal again or normalize before i started heat treating ?

[Steve Sells]

sure weld away

[Fdisk]

I just checked out your site you sure do make some nice looking knives i hope i can make blades as nice as those one day

[Rob Browne]

I would think that normalising/annealing would be a good idea.

[Frosty]

Sure, it welds nicely but it is a good idea to normalize afterwords.

Frosty

[Steve Sells]

I just checked out your site you sure do make some nice looking knives i hope i can make blades as nice as those one day

thank you, it just takes time and practice.

[brucegodlesky]

I preheat the weld area(3/4" either side), do the weld, then post heat the same area.

[dablacksmith]

ok i might be the only one but i dont like to modern weld on a knife because you use filler material that is not high carbon so it creates a weak spot. if it is far enuf from the place where a bolster or gaurd goes it might be ok but ... why chance it?

[Steve Sells]

weak how? many weldments used in MIG are stronger than the brittle high carbon blade steels we use.

But i totally agree about keeping it out of the blade area itself, I leave at least a few inches of blade material into the tang area before I overlap mild steel for a tang extension. After I spot weld it in place with the MIG, I go back to the forge and forge weld it solid... Unless someone puts an etch it there , you cant tell it was welded.

But I am making talkng about my pattern welded blades. That material is too costly to use for tangs, but for a less costly steel I would make the full blade and tang of same material. At an average cost of less than 25 cents a square inch for carbon steels, its to close to the cost of mild to waste the effort, and risk any potential troubles.

[Matt Bower]

You're confusing toughness with strength. The low-carbon filler materials used in most electrodes are tough, but that only means they can bend a long way before they break. High carbon steel is much stronger; it will handle a much greater load before it breaks, or before it bends permanently. Just compare the tensile strength numbers: typical stick/MIG electrodes have tensile strengths of 60,000 psi, or 70,000 for the 70xx series electrodes. Even your medium carbon spring steels have tensile strengths well over 100,000 psi.

See Kevin Cashen's post #59 here, and the subsequent discussion: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=440355&highlight=curve+discussion&page=3

Edited December 19, 2008 by Matt Bower

[Steve Sells]

I confuse terms a lot, Dyslexia, sorry. But isn't that the desired quality with a tang? To flex rather than break? One reason many of us make our tangs dead soft.

The tang is not getting the same amount of working stress as the blade itself, also even with a lower flex measurement of the 6011's 60,000 vs the steels 100,000+, is plenty. I don't want to argue semantics, it defeats the purpose of our discussion, a strong functional tang weld. Jhomney or charpy testing can show it is weaker, but but enough to matter?

[Matt Bower]

I'm sorry; I'm really not trying to start a semantic argument. There's just this ubiquitous fascination among bladesmiths with soft steel -- soft backs, soft tangs, soft everything -- and it bothers me, because it's based on frankly confused ideas about the advantages of soft vs. hard steel. I know that a lot of great makers have gotten away with dead soft tangs for a long time, so I'm not about to claim that it won't work. But all it really proves is that dead soft is usually good enough, not that it's ideal. A dead soft tang will bend under a load that would cause a hardened and tempered tang to flex elastically and snap right back. Since it seems that most tangs are rarely stressed enough to bend, this usually isn't a problem. But I'm not at all persuaded that a tang that bends easily is ideal.

That said, I do tend to shy away from hardening tangs -- but not for reasons of toughness or strengh. I'm just a big chicken. I worry about stress risers in the ricasso/tang transition. I should probably get over that.

[Steve Sells]

about the stress.

That is the major point of failure to what would be an otherwise fine blade, Many of us, at first anyway, make nice clean sharp cuts for the ricasso/tang transitions, but a small curve rather than a clean 90 degree angle is best, as it relieves what will be a stress point.

[Matt Bower]

Yes, I do try to round those transitions -- but I'm still chicken.

[Fdisk]

What about a truck axle im not sure what type steel it is but could i weld it to spring aswell ?? i also have access to a tig welder

[Frosty]

Sure you can. What do you have in mind to use it for?

A welding course at the local college would be useful. Not only would it answer a number of questions it'd give you the hands on skill necessary to do these things. If you hit the local welding supply you can buy comprehensive welding text books for very reasonable printed by Lincoln and Miller that I know of, probably others as well. They're full of just the info you're looking for.

Axles come in many flavors now so I should modify my first comment to say, "Probably." The axles I have in my resource pile can be welded without special rod or technique.

Frosty

[Fdisk]

i am already pretty good at mig welding self learned
but i dont know about what welding does to metals
witch brings me to my next question lol
ive made 1 cut to many in my blade not pay attention when i set my jig up
so would it be ok to mig weld up the cut normalize and go on ?? its only about 1/4 of a inch and isnt in the blade its in the spine my blade is 1/4 thick btw

what im doing is making a parceul hollow handle about 2 inch's of it anyway

Edited December 21, 2008 by Fdisk
forgot

[meinhoutexas]

hey not that i am a blade maker buttttt. you said you had axcess to a TIG welder yes? if you do you could tig the piece back. making sure you do not introduce any "new" steel you would have to work with the metal allready there. like i said NOT A BLADE Man just a welder who plays a lot in some very special places.

[Fdisk]

Well i already miged it its a small place hope it works ok i do have goog friend who is realy good at tig welding and he has a large tig welder ive never tried tig welding but i will keep that in mind i never thought of that