Welding

Clean white sand works pretty well, especially when you add some iron filings.

Hi Tomas, Here in the UK we use silver sand. Ben

What makes you think they didn't have borax. They mine the stuff for cripes sake. It was certainly well known by Theophilus' time (twelfth cent).

As someone else mentioned, sand is a common welding flux.

Also with wrought iron fluxing is not as important as in welding steel. The slag entrained in the metal tends to act as a flux.

Paul K. Dickman

Not a real experienced metal worker like most in this group, but have read that the old time Japanese smiths would use rice straw ash as a flux. The sword collectors claim it makes for a more "active" texture in the steel, this would probably be impurities that got into the weld from the flux/fuel (charcoal in this case). Not sure what was used in Europe.

Brian Huffaker

It's possible to forge weld wrought iron or mild steel in a clean coke fire WITHOUT any flux. You don't have to have flux, it just makes the task a helluva lot easier.

Yeah, the chin ... chiniease? .. (ohh well .. the yellow guys :P) ive read about that ashes .. or read .. ive seen something about it.. the thing is that im most intrested in the european art of blacksmithing .. what they used etc... and maybe as Paul K says they had borax .. whatever it is .. maybe some rock type? .. havent been looking much into it as im newley started but i sure will :>

and for everyone thanks for the posts! :>

Borax is a naturally-occur Occurrence: Although borax was first obtained from the salt lakes of Kashmir and Tibet, the principal deposits are in W. United States. Well-formed crystals up to 15 cm (6") long have been obtained from the mud at Borax Lake, Lake Co., California. Most significant is the deposit at Searles Lake, San Bernadino Co., California, where crystals of borax occur with halite and thenardite; further south, at Boron in Kern Co., borax occurs with other saline minerals in Rhodes Marsh and Teel Marsh in Esmeralda Co., Nevada, and at Alkali Flat, Dona Ana Co., New Mexico.

Probably wasn't very available to Europeans except by trade, so they probably mostly used ashes and stuff.

Tim

-- "That's for the courts to decide." - Homer Simpson Website @

wow, nice .. thanks .. and yes as you say .. they would have to trade it to get it ... and as far as i can see wrought iron seems to have been the most common metal before? ... atleast the pages ive read on states that and that almost all but india and sweden (yay sweden) stoped making it? .. if this information is true .. one might wounder why? :>

Borax was known in those times. While we tend to think of borax as coming from Death Valley (and indeed most of the world's supply does come from there today), there were commercially workable deposits in Egypt available to medieval smiths. (Most smiths probably didn't know about it, though, given the poor communications, and the tendency toward secrecy of the metalworkers, of the era.)

Silica sand was often used as a flux, mainly because it was widely available and cheap. The advantage of borax over silica is that borax starts being chemically active at about 600 F while silica has to reach much higher temperatures before becoming active. That makes borax a much better flux.

Wrought iron can be forge welded without flux since the slag inclusions (primarily silica) self-flux it to a degree. That's of interest because prior to the industrial revolution wrought iron was far more common than what we call steel today. Most of a smith's experience in that era would have been with wrought iron.

Realize that good quality steel was rare in those times, and steel of uniform quality was not available. Most of what a smith worked was of unknown and very variable quality. A lot of ad hoc methods were used, with varying results depending on the particular piece of steel. A lot of the mythology and contradictory methods of smithing arise from this fact.

The biggest difference between then and now is that we've got access to very consistent steels which can be worked with consistent techniques which produce consistent results. The early smiths didn't have this luxury. Each piece of steel was different, and had to be treated differently, to achieve a desired result. The smiths often couldn't know this until they started working a particular piece. They often didn't recognize the root cause of their problems anyway, which is why smiths developed so many nostrums and methods that don't make a lot of sense to us today.

Gary

On Sat, 07 Feb 2004 10:56:30 GMT, Tomas Wilhelmsson vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

uuuhh uhuh...uh!

The "chiniease yellow guys" have made a study of a lifestyle and quite a fascinating culture around what you appear to be on.

Or perhaps you have cast too much lead before exploring iron.

Spike....Spike? Hello?