new to the trade but having fun

I absolutely love the elephant!

Forger wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

ditto. Very nice work.

thank you very much, i might branch into carving in order to reproduce it, my wife made it clear that one is hers

Paul, on the whole ok, but I don't like the welding! I do the double thickness of the rams head by half cutting through the stock and bending it back on its self and forge welding it. (the metal "hinge" holds it real good) Then the mouth can be chiselled in after. But everyone has there own way...... Keep up the good work.... The Beagle

i agree with you, the only problem is i don't know how to forge weld yet... hope i was'nt missleading, i'm VERY new, no training... i just started a fire and went to work, i started with only wood fire coalbed, then added a homemade airbox to force air and heat better, i'm now working on building a gas forge now, any tips on how to forge weld would be very much appreciated, and i'd be glad to follow your advise.

On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 02:03:40 GMT, "me" wrote:

I like coal for welding but I do use propane alot for damascus. I would suggest you go to the laundry section of the supermarket and pick up a box of 20 Mule Team Borax. Nothing makes welding easier than wearing clean clothes. (that would be funny if you saw how dirty I am!) Easy way I can think of learning to forge weld would be to take 2 pieces of mild steel , say 1 inch wide and 1/8 inch thick and maybe 4 inches long. Stack them, then tack weld them onto the end of a piece of rebar for a handle, 1 1/2 feet long or whatever is comfortable. Place the steel in a hot clean fire and turn them every minute or so to get both pieces evenly bright red. Pull them out of the fire and with a spoon, sprinkle the borax on the edges so that it flows down between the 2 pieces of steel. Place back into the fire and bring the heat up. A good sign of when welding temp is reached is when you look closely at the borax you will see tiny bubbles. You will also see a few sparks coming up. I'm no good at describing colors, but I would say its a bright orange. Quickly pull it out and place on the anvil. Start hammering firmly at the far end of the steel and only in the last inch. Just hammer straight up and down and just in that one location until you see you lost the welding heat. If it looks like it welded, let it cool for a minute, then quench it in water so you can check it out. Use a chisel and open up the weld. You should see a very clean bright grey grainy surface on both pieces where it welded ( and it should be somewhat difficult to separate). If it welded you should now know what it "felt" like as you hammered and soon you will know if the weld took or not just from the feel and sound. If you know it didnt weld the first time, simply sprinkle more flux (borax) and stick it back in the fire, get it hot, be sure your edges are still lined up and begin hammering again. I learned how to forge weld with steel cable. Got it hot, fluxed, twisted, fluxed, heated, twisted, fluxed, heated, hammered, ruined. I had frayed burnt cable everywhere until it "clicked".

I hope that made some sense and was helpful. Here is an example of my welds. The little piece is 1095 wrapped around and welded to mild steel, then ground and polished to show what forge welding is and how damascus begins. The daggar is 360 layers.

You certainly are talking to the wrong people! Is there any evidence that they know anything about smithing?

If you're in the USA, check out your local ABANA chapter. You can find them here:

to events and learn lots. ABANA folks are generally very open and helpful.

Another way of telling when you're at the right temp is that the flux starts looking a lot like molten butter.

I'd add that you don't want to really whang on it. If you do, the pieces will jump apart as much as they will weld. You don't need to hit really hard to make the weld.

Steve

yes... but... and i know this is gonna sound like i'm stroking your ego but thats not my intent, they have done smithing and know what they are doing, not near the quality of work you showed me though so maybe it's a security issue i dunno...

Good thing about this is how cheap it can be. My first anvil was homemade from a 100lb block of steel and a round peice bought from the scrap yard for about 10 bucks. I welded them together and beat on it for years. It really doesnt require much money, just some imagination, which it looks like you got lots of. I'm sure there are many people out there that look at your work and think that same "WOW" you did for mine. I'll try to take some more pics and post them. As for what Steve Smith told you about joining a blacksmith association, that is something to consider. I belonged to one for a few years, didnt go to any of the gatherings, but I knew several members, all of whom were very friendly, good at smithing, and "free" with their knowledge, but most important to me was thier buying power to get supplies like steel, coal and anhydrous borax. Gas forge can be as simple as you need it to be also. Mine is made from scrap steel, lined with koawool, firebrick for the bottom and 1/4 pipe with a cap on the end, drilled to about a #50 (?) hole in the middle for a jet. This was just welded to the center of some 3" pipe I happened to have. I did two of those for the burners. I havnet completed it since I doubled the length (added the second burner), but it cost me just a few bucks for the pipe & fittings at home depot and of course for the wool and brick that I already had. I would probably laugh at anyone who would want to copy my design though, since it was made to fit my cheapo budget with junk I happened to have :) Bob

Wrong person to compliment, I haven't posted any pics.

It does sort of sound like they have a security issue with their skills. Anyway, hook up with the right people.

Steve

me wrote:

i've put most of it together now... i used so furnace cement to line the inner tank and was thinking of useing sand in the airpocket between the inner and outer tank wall, is this a good idea or bad, also have to figure out how to connect the gasline and what type regulator i need... looked for details on this but found none

Try

Pete Keillor

Jay Hayes has everything you'll need. He's knowledgable and has a good reputation on the email list TheForge.

don't know how current this page is, prices may have changed. Anyway, try him for a regulator.

Steve

me wrote:

Not sure about the sand but it might melt on you, Don't think there is likely to be an immediate catastrophic failure but expect problems. Highly recommend a good insulator inside. I don't know anything about castable refractory stuff but I would'nt think of not using kaowool or similar for myself. The regulator. Good thing to have but not an absolute necessity. I'm cheap and didn't want to spend the money on it. I just use a needle valve and adjust it where I need it.

GA

hehe I didnt want to say anything :) I was about to just keep my mouth shut for awhile there, thinking that my own cheap way of doing things must not be the "right" way. I dont use a regulator either on my new forge, just a needle valve, and I gotta say it much easier to adjust, I had to run out to the tank to adjust the regulator on my old setup. This is kinda the problem I seen in the associations, for myself anyways, everyone seem to be doing everything one way. BTW I thought of you as I was moving my heavy beast of a gas forge to fire it up today. IIRC that was *you* that made the forge a few weeks ago and posted pics? If so, I loved the simplicity and originality of it. I'm guessing its about 80 lbs lighter than mine. Bob

Are you using propane or natural gas? I wouldnt use sand myself because we are talking about some pretty high temps that you are trying to contain. Fire brick is cheap, I made one using all broken bricks I got free from a coal fired steam heat facility, filled in the gaps with refractory. It worked for years with no problems. I posted some pics of my newly built atmospheric forge. Not pretty but it works (and doesnt take electricity to run, important since I live off the grid). I just built a second one and welded to the first to double the length :/ I just posted some pics of it (and a few other things I made) :

Very nice work Bob.

Steve

agreed i like his desighn alot better of what i could tell i should have waited and looked around longer than i did but i guess i'm too anxiouse to get it going... lol, the forge is already welded together at this point though so i guess i could take firebrick and bust it up till basicly powder and pore it in like i was going to do with the sand if i can get my hands on some koawool (like greyangel suggested) maybe i can apply a lil more of the furnace cement to stick the wool in... man i was hoping to build this out of junk i had lieing around, as i said before i'm very resticted on cash so it may be a while before i can let you guys know how it worked.