Help with a guard.

So I'm working on a custom orders and the customer wants a forward catch guard with that requires a fairly tight forward pitch .I normally would make it from steel but he wants brass.Kind of useless in my mind but that's what he has set his mind to.Has anyone worked brass like this,I will be using 1/4 inch flat stock ,I suppose I will need to anel it first then try and hammer it over or make a bending jig.Any suggestions would be appreciated.

The method you mentioned is what I would try to do, but would do it "cold". Just remember that annealing brass is the opposite of steel! Heat it to red, quench in water, THEN gently hammer it. It will work harden quickly, so you might have to heat/quench several times. If you try to take it too far on one anneal, it will crack or break.

There is also the option of working it hot, but in my experience that usually ends badly, with the brass cracking/breaking, or worse, ending up with a fragment or drop of melted brass in your forge.....keep in mind that if you get a single drop of melted brass in a forge used for welding, it will never weld again, until you clean it out, which usually requires a complete reline. (This is why I work brass cold....its too easy to loose a drop/chip/fragment of it in your forge).....and you'll never know it until the next time you try to weld something, and no matter what you do, the weld won't happen.......been there, done that.....and it will drive you nuts.

Ed would you anneal it and work it and repeat or just go cold ?

Sorry, when I said "cold", I meant once it's cooled down from annealing (after it's been heated and quenched). I find brass much nicer to work with when it's been annealed and is "cold".....for me it's less work, less clean up afterward, and far fewer ooopppss!

Thanks Ed !

EdCaffreyMS said:

..keep in mind that if you get a single drop of melted brass in a forge used for welding, it will never weld again, until you clean it out, which usually requires a complete reline. (This is why I work brass cold....its too easy to loose a drop/chip/fragment of it in your forge).....and you'll never know it until the next time you try to weld something, and no matter what you do, the weld won't happen.......been there, done that.....and it will drive you nuts.

Click to expand...

This is fascinating. Can you explain it to me? Why does having a little brass in the forge prevent welds?

Sulfide gas.......most all the non-ferric alloys will create it when heated to welding temps for steel. (the melting points for most of the non-ferric alloys is far below "welding" heat for steel) Having it in the forge atmosphere is akin to spraying PAM (the non-stick cooking spray) on everything. It's easy to miss, because it's very light, but when the gas is present in the forge atmosphere, you will usually have a slight greenish tinge to the flames (whether it's a gas or coal forge). This is the reason I don't do much mokume anymore, and if I were to start doing it again, I would have a forge solely dedicated for making it.

In the "old days" it wasn't uncommon for competing Blacksmiths to commit sabotage by tossing a penny into the competitor's forge. Also, I've taught at a few different venues in Europe where they did not allow any non-ferric material in the shop.....literally made people empty their pockets of coins at the door.

Several years ago I was demonstrating at a Hammer-in, and the instructor before me was doing a demo on composite damascus..... he couldn't get ANYTHING to weld, and finally gave up on his demo. After letting the forge cool down, and inspecting it, we found a melted/spent .22 casing in bottom of the forge. To his credit, one of the young guys at the hammer said that he had thrown it in there the evening before, and had no idea of what he'd done...... needless to say the forging was toast.

Thank you very much for explaining that, Ed. That is definitely a real gotcha if someone didn't know. That's something that could make you pull your hair out in frustration.

Is this possibly why Japanese smiths build a one-time brick forge for mokume? The videos I've seen on YouTube show them building a mud/brick forge and then pretty much knocking it down at the end while retrieving the mokume.

I can't say for sure, but it would make sense. A forge for making mokume, only needs to get to the lowest melting point of the alloys being used...and the risk of contamination is so great if a person were using their "main" forge..... it would be prudent to have a "one and done" forge.

Now this is interesting, I know that gas welding we used brass to braze the sheet metal or thin steel. Due to the low melting points of brass and copper it would make sense it would interfere with forging.

Well it took some time,heat quench,hammer ,repeat.Added a sterling silver face plate as requested .

That came out great! Nice work!!

Ditto! That looks really nice.

DeMo