Any Experiance With Scrap Ingot Iron

[Dave English]

In my Materials Handbook, 1956, is a description of ingot iron that's used for special purposes, electromagnetic cores, boiler plate, for water tanks. It often has very low carbon, .02%, but can be as high as .15%, it's rust resistent. How does this weld? Is it like wrought iron where the two pieces actually are welded together or is it more like or mild steel where it's more of a surface weld?

[TASMITH]

If it is the type of steel used for electrical cores,such as transformer cores, and such it will be a lower level of carbon, BUT, it will contain high levels of silicon. I am not entirely sure how this will forge weld as I have never tried it but the silicon will no doubt change the effect of the weld and perhaps make the weld joint weaker. I do know that the silicon levels are up around 5 or 6% and maybe Quenchcrack may be more up on this effect.

Terry

[ThomasPowers]

I just picked up some transformer core lams to use in a bandsaw blade billet and compare them with the pallet strapping I usually use. If I don't get the poles for my shop extension set this weekend I'll try it out.

[Dave English]

This is very pure iron, not steel, such as Armco ingot iron of the American Rolling Mills Co in 1956, is 99.94% pure iron. I don't know if transformer cores are the same but I believe it would be of some type of pure iron. The reason I ask is that iron cores in scrap large electric motors and generators may be worth locating if the the iron forge welds like wrought iron.

[Paul B]

If you are taking the iron from large oil filled transformers, be carefull of the PCB's.

[Dave English]

I just spent about 20 min writing a detailed reply and was told I had to log in (I was already logged in) and as you may have experianced yourself, the reply was lost in cyber space never to be seen again. This is about the 6th time this has happened, I should have 48-49 posts, not 42. My best posts are ......

[Iron Falcon 72]

I try to remember to copy any long post to a word processor before hitting post. Good luck in the future.

[matt87]

I have been told (by John Bellamy) that transformer core iron is basically pure iron, the same as is marked to blacksmiths, e.g. here: Pure Iron - The Core Element It's softer/more ductile and easier to fire-weld than mild steel but John says it's a lot more thermally conductive than steel so you will need tongs on pieces you wouldn't if it were steel.

[Dave English]

I had posted how the core of transformers can be steel, air or pure iron, dependingon thier use. The Navy uses steel in plates for the most part so scrap Navy transformers should have steel cores. Iron cores can be found on -20 KHz, smaller tranformers, but I don't know if a smaller transformer is 2 pounds or 200 pounds.