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Cronus posted:Just wanted to say I read this thread with constant jealousy over the past few weeks. But today I got a surprise - I'll be going to the John C Campbell Folk School to take a class over the weekend called If you end up in Boone send me a PM, I'll buy the beer and help you find all the folks involved in iron you could ever wanna meet.
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Oct 29, 2009 23:07
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SMASHING IRON 
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Atlanta's a huge city, any technical school or trade school should offer night classes in welding. I hope you enjoy your class, please take lots of pictures of the stuff you make.
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Oct 29, 2009 23:07
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Couple of groups for you pulled off the ABANA website OCMULGEE BLACKSMITH GUILD Pres: Alfred McClure 155 Creekwood Dr Giffin GA 30223 770-468-2312 ironstash@comcast.net Ed: George Biang 701 Oliver Rd Meansville GA 30256 770-567-5424 gbiang@altenergy.com https://www.ocmulgeeblacksmiths.org ALEX BEALER BLACKSMITH ASSOCIATION Pres: Ken Baker 2970 Bobolink Drive Rex, GA 30273 president@alexbealer.org Ed: Houston White 4530 Holliston Road Atlanta, GA 30360 (770) 451-1342 newsletter@alexbealer.org http://alexbealer.org All this was information that was publicly posted
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Oct 30, 2009 12:27
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Hey guys, I am looking to get some pliers for x-mas, but I can't remember the real name of the type I need. One side of the jaws is convex and the other concave. I think they are a kind of ring bending plier, but I'm not sure. The ones I have used before were made by Knipex (but I can't find them on their site) and the length of the jaws was about 1.5 inches. I need to get two pairs of them for bending trumpet braces. Gripping them with regular duckbills can scratch the brass, and round nose don't grip the parts well. I can also post some pics of the trombone I am rebuilding for my friend. (it got run over by a car,) or of a trumpet I am customizing right now. My progress on the trumpet is detailed here : http://www.trumpetmaster.com/vb/f139/custom-trumpet-project-2-5-a-49747.html The site doesn't load sometimes though. I think their server gets overloaded.
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Nov 2, 2009 05:30
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Brekelefuw posted:One side of the jaws is convex and the other concave. I think they are a kind of ring bending plier, but I'm not sure. The ones I have used before were made by Knipex (but I can't find them on their site) and the length of the jaws was about 1.5 inches.
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Nov 3, 2009 06:29
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I have no idea either Brek, but that thread you have on the other forum is pretty neat. What happened to all our weldors? I tried stainless today. These are all roughly in order, first to last.   I hosed up the last one pretty bad towards the end, I touched the puddle with the tungsten and the filler rod froze solid, I couldn't get it out. Still, not bad considering it's the first time I've ever done stainless.
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Nov 3, 2009 08:07
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Slung Blade posted:What happened to all our weldors? Months of forging and smithing chat! Your welds look like they might need a little bit more heat. Everyone always told me that with tig welding you want to weld as cold as possible which really screwed me up when I was learning it. I found that when you turn the heat up enough so that the puddle just nicely melts the edges together while still wanting to eat up that rod it's the right temperature. It's a bit too cold if you're snuffing the rod out, and its a bit too hot if you slip up for a second and it chews up the edges real bad. Stainless is kind of neat to weld eh? I like how goopy it is but then at the same time how nicely it flows when you hit it right. Oh yeah for your stainless, never hit it with a buffing wheel because it will wreck the finish of your weld, but you probably knew this already.
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Nov 3, 2009 09:57
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Glad to see you're still around Smokey. My instructor tells me I was cheating to the top plate instead of the base plate. Makes sense, I have great adhesion along the top edge, and kinda lousy adhesion along the bottom edge. I need to work at consistency, but so far welding stainless doesn't seem that bad at all. I'm not really looking forward to aluminium. Mostly because I don't ever want to weld it at home. But also because I don't have an AC TIG machine to do it with. Oh well, I guess I'll learn it anyway.
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Nov 3, 2009 18:12
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Glad to see that someone is still able to get any work done, be it learning or random projects. One of the reasons that I picked up metal working is that I'd be able to create my family's Christmas gifts from scratch. Anyone else have plans like this? I know it hasn't even passed Thanksgiving yet, but if you are like me, you should probably get started now  My family is large enough that we draw names for the one person that we will give a gift to for Christmas so that no one goes bankrupt trying to get gifts for all of us. I got my older sister, and I think I am going to make her a rose, because she really liked the one I gave Mom. As a Christmas/Birthday/Congratulations for finally getting the house you have been trying to buy for three months gift for my brother, I want to make a gate for his house. The house he got was forclosed on, so the previous owners took everything that wasn't bolted down, and some things that were, like the backyard gate. I was thinking of putting a rod iron frame together, and then somehow attaching wooden boards to it, so that it looks like a regular wooden gate. Then, I want to weld together a calligriphic looking K (for our last name) in the middle of the wood, and top the whole thing off with some scrollwork at the top of the gate.
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Nov 3, 2009 18:47
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I finally found the name of the pliers I want. I checked everywhere BUT the instrument repair tool companies... http://www.musicmedic.com/catalog/products/tool-pl103.html This is them, although I don't use them for springs.
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Nov 5, 2009 03:58
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3F stainless welds tonight. Wasn't terrible starting out, considering I've never done it before. Not great though.  Had pretty much the same problem all night. Starts off pretty well, then the heat gets saturated, and the heat starts burning through to the back and sugars the weld.  I got better about backing off on the pedal as the night went on. I think I've got a decent handle on it now.
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Nov 5, 2009 07:24
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Slung Blade posted:3F stainless welds tonight. You might be starting too hot. It takes a while to get the heat going with stainless, so what you can do is set your machine to sort of a medium setting then just play with the puddle for a while at the bottom until sufficient heat builds up to get it going into the next part of the weld. You'll still have to taper off at the top though there's just no way around it. Also you're not putting enough metal into your fillet, try to flush it out a little better. SmokeyXIII fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Nov 5, 2009 |
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Nov 5, 2009 08:03
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Can one of you guys explain a bit about what to look at in those welding pictures? I know nothing about it, but it is interesting. To me those pictures look like any other weld I have ever seen. Where have they gone wrong?
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Nov 5, 2009 13:46
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Look at the second picture, particularly the weld in the top left. See how it's convex on the left? That's where I started welding. The convex shape means there was enough heat and enough filler to make a proper weld. The second half is concave, see how it dips in a little bit and sinks? That means I was too hot and didn't get enough filler in there. If I had flipped the samples over, you would see where there was "sugaring" towards the end of each weld (the concave part). That just means there was too much heat, it burned through to the other side and oxidized the stainless, as there's no shielding gas there to protect it from contamination.
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Nov 5, 2009 17:50
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Learned to do aluminium today. Also tried a t-joint for fun. Same problems linger, I need to back off on the heat towards the end. Starting to get a handle on that, I think.
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Nov 10, 2009 06:48
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Last night of my course. Passed the 'test' with no trouble. Minor undercut on the base plate, but nothing too horrid. No sugaring on the other side at all. I'm pretty happy with my stainless welds. The mild steel was similar, but not quite as nice. I never really got much better at aluminium, but I also didn't really practice it or try all that hard. I don't like aluminium and I hate working with it at home, ferrous is what I care about.
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Dec 1, 2009 05:54
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oh cool i just found this thread i'm taking a metal shop class at my school and a jewelry class mig welding rules, it's like using an electric hot glue gun i'm cold forging a breastplate right now as my final term project in my metal class, i'll post pictures of it when i'm finished. i'm a fashion student, so i'm probably going to attach a leather zip-up back so that it can be worn more easily as well as crap like feathers because i'm tacky. i really wanted to do hot forging, but i'm working with mild steel, and the guy who works at the metal shop says that mild steel doesn't need to be annealed. idk if that's true or not. i made this pin in my jewelry class. it was my first time doing marriage of metals. i soldered silver and nickel together on the stars and on parts of the chain. grinding down all the solder sucked:  and this was my first time working with a small jewelry saw. i made a bracelet out of nickel, gave it a hammer texture and a flame finish: 
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Dec 2, 2009 05:46
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It depends on how much you work the metal, if you work a chunk of mild steel enough it will need to be annealed, this is doubly true if you are doing any dishing on it. Furthermore in regards to the breastplate, consider doing the zippers on the sides and have a back plate.
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Dec 2, 2009 14:39
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This is how far my breastplate is, I still have to shape it a lot more and smooth out the surface. My teacher and the shop manager won't let me anneal it even though some of the metal was tearing as I hammered it!! I'm shaping it out of one piece of metal rather than welding multiple pieces together. Also, I made a sterling silver ring and gave it a liver of sulfur patina. I melted scraps of silver and learned how to make wire to make the ring bands. My bezels are a bit sloppy because I didn't realize how hard it would be to set multiple stones that close to one another.  And finally, I made a sterling silver spoon for my boyfriend's mom for xmas. It's really cutesy; someone said that it reminded them of Alice in Wonderland. I shaped the bowl of the spoon with a hydraulic press until the dye snapped in half. Then I had to hammer it out.    Yaaay metalwork. I'm going to miss it next semester. 4R7 THi3F fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Dec 12, 2009 |
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Dec 12, 2009 08:11
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Really nice work! Why won't your shop teachers let you anneal the breast plate? (That breast plate is sexy enough by itself, can't wait to see it on a person.) I need to get off my rear end and get back out to my shop. I haven't even struck an arc in a couple months
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Dec 12, 2009 08:48
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I still need to attach feathers and a leather back to it. I kind of envisioned it as an avant garde ballet costume or something. Originally I wanted to cut out a large peephole from the stomach + waist section and weld gears behind it. My teachers won't let me anneal it because they keep telling me that mild steel is steel in its softest state and that it doesn't work harden even after you work it a lot.
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Dec 12, 2009 16:25
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4R7 THi3F posted:My teachers won't let me anneal it because they keep telling me that mild steel is steel in its softest state and that it doesn't work harden even after you work it a lot. They are very incorrect. Mild steel will work harden.
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Dec 12, 2009 16:59
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To expand on this topic... Pretty much anything with carbon can be hardened, it's just a matter of to what extent based on other alloying elements. Now in theory, standard mild steel SHOULDN'T work harden to the extent where you will notice it cracking, however theory and real life are two different things. Because today's mild steel has been recycled an rear end-load of times, and quality standards of the steel producers have slipped, you can find surprising differences in the chemistry between two different pieces of A36. This is why forge welding modern mild steel is very difficult. Most blacksmiths that want to forge weld have to shell out more $ for steels that have better chemistry. In short, your teachers are being complete assholes by sticking to "the book" and not realizing that real life circumstances can change how things in "the book" work. If you can't convince them to let you anneal your breast plate by reasoning with them, then propose a little experiment. Take a piece of the steel you are using and put it in a bench vise. While they watch, bend the portion sticking out of the vise back and forth with some pliers. It WILL eventually snap and crack. The only way for that to occur in that scenario is if the steel was work hardened to the point of being brittle.
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Dec 12, 2009 20:04
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To avoid potential confusion, dv6 is totally correct, however, work hardening is different than fire-hardening. Work hardening is a build up of atomic defects while fire-hardening is a chemical molecular alteration. Just to be clear, work hardening has nothing to do with carbon. But yeah, your teachers are dead wrong. Any metal will work harden if you bend it or misshape it past its spring-back point (I forget the exact term for this, anyone remember?). Except for maybe gold and a few other extremely ductile metals. Given that this is some kind of metal art class, I'm betting you have some O/A welding filler rods in the shop right? Take one of those and bend it, tell your teachers to un-bend it using only their fingers. They won't be able to do it because it just work hardened. Heat the plate up a bit and let it cool. If they don't like it tell them to talk the internet, we'll back you up. Fantastic work by the way. Do you have a picture of that broken dye from the press? I'd love to see that. dv6speed posted:Most blacksmiths that want to forge weld have to shell out more $ for steels that have better chemistry. gently caress, tell me about it
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Dec 12, 2009 21:14
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Slung Blade posted:Just to be clear, work hardening has nothing to do with carbon. Edit, BTW Slung Blade, have you successfully forge welded yet? I forget. AbsentMindedWelder fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Dec 13, 2009 |
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Dec 13, 2009 01:16
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Sorry, I shouldn't have said "nothing to do with", I should have said "little to do with". Carbon content will affect work hardening, but it's far less important than the atomic structure of the metal itself. Since carbon alters the structure by binding to the molecules, or contaminating the pure elemental metal, it affects it somewhat. I mean something like an O1 bar isn't going to work harden a whole lot, you'll probably shatter or crack the loving thing before it bends very much if you're trying to work harden it. Yeah, I have forge welded twice. One took and has held to this day, and the other one didn't, so I arced it and ground it down so it looked forge welded. Have you and your buddy tried it yet? Mild steel in a gas forge is certainly possible, but it takes a lot of skill and I'm not quite there yet to do it consistently. Ironically, carbon steel and old-style wrought iron welds way, way better in the forge. Mostly I need to work on scraping the scale off when hot and getting the flux on before it oxidizes again. Slung Blade fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Dec 13, 2009 |
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Dec 13, 2009 04:59
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Slung Blade posted:Yeah, I have forge welded twice. One took and has held to this day, and the other one didn't, so I arced it and ground it down so it looked forge welded. Have you and your buddy tried it yet? Edit: I was thinking today that borax is probably hygroscopic, and therefore using old borax could be an issue. My buddy seems to think that any moisture would instantly vaporize when put back in the forge. I'm not so sure it is that simple however. What do you think? AbsentMindedWelder fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Dec 13, 2009 |
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Dec 13, 2009 05:39
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dv6speed posted:He has tried about a dozen times without any success so far over about a year time span. I've been involved with most of those attempts, we actually tried again today when he was over earlier, but still no luck. It is. You can make it anhydrous borax by baking it in the oven on an old cookie sheet. Not sure of the temperature, probably 400' for an hour or two. One of the blacksmithing websites would have the details, probably iforgeiron. Is he using pure borax? He could try adding a little fine sand or something, I understand that helps sometimes. The only time I was able to do it, I wirewheeled the bars clean, wired them together, and heated them at the same time in my charcoal forge. No flux was involved because air couldn't get into the joint. When I tried to use flux in my gas forge, it didn't work because a tiny layer of scale built up just before I got the flux onto the surface and coat it.
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Dec 13, 2009 07:16
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He's using borax that is in a box sold as a laundry additive. I don't know if he's stopping by tomorrow or not, but gently caress it, I'm going to fire up the forge in the morning and try wiring some bar stock together as you described so air can't get in there. That's a good idea, at least to pull off a proof of concept forge weld anyway. Edit: What the gently caress was I thinking? Moving air and granular matter. BRILLIANT! AbsentMindedWelder fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Dec 13, 2009 |
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Dec 13, 2009 07:30
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In regards to mild steel NEVER needing to annealed, I agree with the two gentlemen above. In addition, I've made armor, anyone who thinks that you don't need to anneal the steel is in for a big shock. On forge welding, I've never had a problem forge welding any steel I've come across, I've been using low sulfur soft coal, I flux when the pieces to be welded are dull red and then take them up to welding heat. It's much easier if it goes as a two person event, your assistant handling one of the objects to be welded, you the other and the hammer. Of course there are work arounds and tricks. Binding the two pieces in bailing wire is one of the fast stupid ways to keep your welds together. The flux I've used for forge welding and for most of my jewelery work is 20 Mule Team Borax. Bake it on a cookie sheet at 400-500 and it will dance for you, while it still works if you don't bake it, it will work better if you do. Adding some silica sand into your flux might be helpful, I use the stuff for casting, not welding, so I don't know how helpful it would be. Works well when doing bronze and brass casting. Blacksmith fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Dec 13, 2009 |
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Dec 13, 2009 14:12
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I wish I could meet these shop teachers. I just can't understand how someone who is in a college teaching position could be so wrong about something so simple. I'm not saying they aren't talented people, BUT drat. I'm about to go cook some grub for breakfast, and then I'll suit up and attempt that forge weld spoke of earlier.
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Dec 13, 2009 17:10
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Forge weld didn't work again this morning. I'm not sure if it was because I didn't get it hot enough, or there was still enough air space between the steel that it scaled up. The borax here is 20 mule team after all. I got some in the toaster oven now drying out. I'll try it again in the evening or tomorrow.
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Dec 13, 2009 21:39
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Any chance of giving us a photo or six of your forge welding attempts? I might be able to help from afar. Also 4R7 THi3F, what college are you at? I want to avoid it's art department if they are this misinformed about practical production.
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Dec 14, 2009 13:41
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Don't have a working camera now
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Dec 14, 2009 14:33
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You working with coal or propane?
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Dec 14, 2009 20:17
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Propane.
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Dec 14, 2009 20:22
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I go to school at Pratt. Don't diss my school too much. The metal shop is pretty great because anyone who passes the class with a grade of C or better gets unlimited use of the metal shop even after they graduate. Too bad the jewelry studio doesn't do that.
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Dec 15, 2009 04:38
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4R7 THi3F posted:The metal shop is pretty great because anyone who passes the class with a grade of C or better gets unlimited use of the metal shop even after they graduate.
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Dec 15, 2009 15:23
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How is the scale on propane? I've not done much work with gas forges, so I'm not sure.
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Dec 16, 2009 00:01
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Blacksmith posted:How is the scale on propane? I've not done much work with gas forges, so I'm not sure.
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Dec 16, 2009 00:02
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