So I've recently got a Hells Forge 2 burner forge, so working with propane. It heats up pretty quickly. Ive tuned the flame, covered the ends with soft fire brick to contain the heat, but I never seem to be able to get 1/2 in square stock above orange color. Id like it to get to yellow so i can move steel faster or forge weld. Im just making hooks for now to learn drawing the steel out, but its difficult without the steel getting as hot as I'd like. Am I just not waiting long enough? I feel like I wait at least 2 minutes or so before pulling it out of the fire.
I just mainly tend to the fire, putting more charcoal on it as needed, either that or browse Reddit lol
I want to draw several time temperature graphs for a heat treatment procress and they should follow the same design/standard
One example of the type of diagram I need to draw
Do you know a simple software to do this in a neat way?
power point seems to be quite some fiddling around... espacially if the graphsshould be comparable to each other scale wise (+-5min and +-100°C should have the same length always)
https://preview.redd.it/682lf9de40921.jpg?width=364&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=30a183e5da07c1dd1de3793f89cff107ebd292f8
How different is forging wootz than other steels? Do you hammer the ingot at high temps or low?
ZetoChain platform is of interest to traders, restaurant owners, and even to us, who go to the market and buy products. It’s true, the involvement of producers will take some time. But investors are significantly interested in this project thanks to the detailed and open-published forecasts along with the steadily growing value of tokens.
So, I spent the last couple months getting all my tools together, building an anvil and forge, and securing some coal, all the while I was reading books and watching videos to learn as much about blacksmiths as I could. I am a full time university student away from home, and the only chance I really got to smith this past month was during winter break.
Now, the project I undertook was to turn a lawnmower blade into a tomahawk (like this) by straightening it out, cutting it off, shaping it and then forge welding it onto itself. The process of shaping and cutting it was all fairly simple, although admittedly a bit more laborious than I thought it would be. But when I tried to forge weld it, it did not go well. I used borax flux, but the edges did not weld together. And even when I heated the metal up to a bright yellow it still did not look like it actually meshed on the edge. I will admit, I was not as careful about scraping off scale as I should have been, but I think now that it would have at least mended over the scale where it was clean.
I was doing all of this outside in northern Minnesota, and the temperature was something around 10 degrees Fahrenheit. I was warm enough, and I moved my metal quickly from the forge to the anvil when I worked, but I am wondering if the cold temperature just sucked out the heat too quickly, or if I am doing something wrong with forge welding to begin with. I did also attempt to work on a railroad spike which also had its fair share of problems, so I am wondering if anyone has had trouble forging during the winter, and what they did to improve their situation.
EDIT: Sorry to get back to you all so late. First off, thank you for your advice. I see now that I need a little lot more practice before I start forge welding, but that just means I get to watch more videos and read more books. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little discouraged, but I am going to keep learning and practicing when I can, and hopefully I will someday craft something to be proud to share with you guys. Thanks, everyone. You guys are the best!
Hello, I am almost positive I saw a post a while back, in some subreddit somewhere, which had different colours of the same metal when forged in a different temperature, or different way, or something, but I can't seem to find it. Can someone help me out?
Essentially, it looked like a bunch of swords side by each, with colours ranging from blue to gold to red..
edit: ah, found the picture I was looking for: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tempering_standards_used_in_blacksmithing.JPG Thanks to /u/mountedpandahead for the keyword: "temper"..
This hasn't been posted in a while, and I'm again seeing pictures / videos of new blacksmiths showing off their holiday present forge, in use, with unsealed insulation.
While we're at it, if you're new, watch this video, it may save your life (or at least your fingers!)
Hey I am new to blacksmithing. I recently got the whitlox mini forge and a rail anvil. My question is that it seems that I am having a hard time getting metal hot enough in the whitlox mini. I use misc firewood that I have on my property. I think it is mostly alder. I use a cast aluminum manual blower. Questions Itemized:
- How long does it take whitlox to heat a piece of metal to forging and welding temps? Roughly?(last time I cranked for probably 20 min and it still wasn't hot enough)
- Does anyone have a chart that shows visual colors of steel in its carious working temps with captions?
- When you fold a metal do you have to ad flux before you fold or do you apply it on the crease after? Do you even need flux if you are folding metal onto itself?
- Does anyone have links to charts which show the various temperature requirements for different steels and information for tempering and such? I see them referenced on forums but people rarely post them. Thanks to any responses in advance. I am sorry I am such a noob. I have no training and everything I know is from the internet. I also apologize if this information is readily available I am not the best at searching on reddit.
I have a question about forging temperatures. I see different things about how to build a small forge, and there seem to be different methods of creating the heat.
It looks like some people use charcoal, some people use propane, etc. It seems that all are valid, but I have two questions.
One, does anyone use either mapp gas or oxy/acetylene or anything else? If not, why?
Second, and this is more of a general question, but does anyone know about the different "heat ranges" of each method of heating, in general? For example, I know that propane won't heat things as well as mapp gas under the same conditions, and that mapp gas won;t heat things as hot as oxy/acetylene. But where does charcoal fall in that spectrum? Will a charcoal forge get hotter than a mapp gas forge? Oxy/acetylene? What about something like a carbon arc torch, where does that land? This last question is more general and I just feel like it'll help me in the future.
Thank you all!!
I need to reline my forge, I've already gotten my kaowool insulation and rigidized, but recently it's been relatively cold and I want to know if that will effect the curing time or quality of the refractory.
The weekly highs have been around 40°f and lows in the 15°f range. It's also been very humid, lots of snow etc.
I'm using hellcote 3000, ordered replacement lining from the people I bought my forge, but I assume that stuff is comparable to other refractory cements.
If anyone could help me it would be much appreciated.
Hey, I'm looking for advice, on hardening steel in a coal forge. I'm mostly worried about having my piece not stay on temp long enough for a successful quench, because of the coals burning off, and adding more might lower the temp ? Any advice for an aspiring blacksmith ?
The technological advancements over centuries are often hard to grasp. Sometimes I like to wonder if a basic tool, such as a kitchen knife would be a good benchmark for it.
If we consider an OK everyday knife, e.g. Ikea https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/ikea-365-3-piece-knife-set-90341170/ worth ~$20, would it roughly compare to an european medieval knife in terms of quality and durability? (except for stainless steel material). How large portion of household's wealth would it be?
Hey guys,
I'm having a little trouble reaching welding temperature with the single burner Hell's Forge. Just wanted to get your guys' opinion on how to maximize the temperature.
This is the one I currently have:
https://www.amazon.com/Hells-Forge-Portable-Propane-Farrier/dp/B07FN651NS
I've tried covering both ends with fire bricks to minimize the heat loss with not a lot of luck. I was thinking about adding more kaowool layers to the interior to lessen the area thats heated or buying a different pressure regulator since the one that came with the product only goes to 20 psi. Just wanted to get your guys' input and see what else I could be doing. Thanks!
I work with large forging equipment which have components (22” diameter 10” tall as example) bolted to holders in a set that experience cyclical loads when the press opens and closes to forge metal.
We have issues with bolts breaking during production occasionally. We use socket head cap bolts. There is no nut as they are directly fastened into a blind hole in the components to hold them together. Typically they are 1” to 1.5 diameter with course thread and we use a lock washer on all of them. Thread engagement over 1.25” x diameter.
For anyone with experience in bolts and failure issues, what are some things we can look at to address our bolt breaking issues? I suggested to my boss that we make sure we look into correct preloads and have assemblers make sure they go to a torque we determine. I think they’re just tightening them without a spec or procedure. Special washers, bolt types, design considerations to look at? Vibration and cyclical loads as well as temperature are factors since we are heating forgings up to almost 1000 F. (Bolts probably see 300-500F)
Edit: Thank you everyone for all the great advice. I am not very familiar with bolts but I’ve been reading and doing a lot of research, advice from engineers with experience is very helpful to point me in the right direction.
This hasn't been posted in a while, and I've seen multiple pictures / videos of new blacksmiths showing off their new holiday present - a forge, in use, with unsealed insulation.
While we're at it, if you're new, watch this video, it may save your life (or at least your fingers!)
This hasn't been posted in a while, and I've seen three pictures / videos of new blacksmiths in the past week showing off their new forge, in use, with unsealed insulation.
Shout out to the hammerbros discord server who put that wiki together and host that image.
