acmetsala
03-13-2010, 12:21 PM
I am not the sort of person who can stand in front of my forge waiting for it to heat up. When I put a can in the forge I will usually have something else going on like grinding blades, surface grinding, or building a knife. If I stand there waiting for it to heat up I tend to get impatient, which is never a good idea.
After putting the can in the forge I like to turn the can 180 degrees every 10 minutes or so and set the can down in a slightly different spot inside the forge. I like to wait to get the initial weld on the can when the floor of
the forge doesn't change color when I turn it. I go by sight and color to tell me when it is ready to go. I can judge the color better when I have the lights off in that part of my shop. I like a nice bright light yellow color.
I have burnt a hole though the can while waiting for it to heat up. I can be very absent minded and get absorbed in a task, and when I went to turn the can it had a hole in the side. Then it is a total waste.
When you start to reduce the can you can use narrower dies which will allow a more aggressive push. This may save you a few extra heats, but you will tend to have more pattern distortion. I like to use dies that are wider. You cannot reduce as fast, but your pattern will be more uniform.
When in doubt throw the billet back into the forge. Don't let the billet get too cool while forging. Not only do you risk breaking welds, but remember that your dies act as a heat sink and draw out the heat quickly. Many times I will set the dies on top of my forge to heat up, or heat up a piece of steel and place it between the dies. A billet will cool fast on the outside, but
the inside is still blazing hot. So if you push on a billet and the outside is cooler and the inside is hot, the outside will change very little, but the inside of the billet will change quite a bit more. This will lead to alot of pattern distortion too. These are some things I figured out by trial and error and would hope to save you from some possible mistakes.
Use good steel for dies you will use alot like H-13. Dies can get
messed up quickly and fold over on the front lip. They can easily become uneven which can result in the billet not being pressed with equal force and you can have problems keeping the billet square. Surface grind your flat dies.
When I first light my forge I like to start with something that is already bonded. I will reduce already bonded damascus steel, or take big round stock of say L-6 and forge it down to pieces that are more usable in the making of my steel.
I want my forge to be light bright yellow in color when I stick a billet in that will be forge welded. I hate when things don't stick, there is nothing worse than spending a day cutting stock, wrapping nickel, and building a can to have it all go to waste.
Buying L-6 in ready to use pieces costs around 5.00 a pound, but I can usually find round stock from 2" to 6" in diameter for .50 to 1.00 a pound. Of course there are costs involved in making it into useful sizes, like propane, time, grinding, etc.. so you will have to decide if it is worth it. Running my angle grinder for hours is not pleasant, at least for me.
After putting the can in the forge I like to turn the can 180 degrees every 10 minutes or so and set the can down in a slightly different spot inside the forge. I like to wait to get the initial weld on the can when the floor of
the forge doesn't change color when I turn it. I go by sight and color to tell me when it is ready to go. I can judge the color better when I have the lights off in that part of my shop. I like a nice bright light yellow color.
I have burnt a hole though the can while waiting for it to heat up. I can be very absent minded and get absorbed in a task, and when I went to turn the can it had a hole in the side. Then it is a total waste.
When you start to reduce the can you can use narrower dies which will allow a more aggressive push. This may save you a few extra heats, but you will tend to have more pattern distortion. I like to use dies that are wider. You cannot reduce as fast, but your pattern will be more uniform.
When in doubt throw the billet back into the forge. Don't let the billet get too cool while forging. Not only do you risk breaking welds, but remember that your dies act as a heat sink and draw out the heat quickly. Many times I will set the dies on top of my forge to heat up, or heat up a piece of steel and place it between the dies. A billet will cool fast on the outside, but
the inside is still blazing hot. So if you push on a billet and the outside is cooler and the inside is hot, the outside will change very little, but the inside of the billet will change quite a bit more. This will lead to alot of pattern distortion too. These are some things I figured out by trial and error and would hope to save you from some possible mistakes.
Use good steel for dies you will use alot like H-13. Dies can get
messed up quickly and fold over on the front lip. They can easily become uneven which can result in the billet not being pressed with equal force and you can have problems keeping the billet square. Surface grind your flat dies.
When I first light my forge I like to start with something that is already bonded. I will reduce already bonded damascus steel, or take big round stock of say L-6 and forge it down to pieces that are more usable in the making of my steel.
I want my forge to be light bright yellow in color when I stick a billet in that will be forge welded. I hate when things don't stick, there is nothing worse than spending a day cutting stock, wrapping nickel, and building a can to have it all go to waste.
Buying L-6 in ready to use pieces costs around 5.00 a pound, but I can usually find round stock from 2" to 6" in diameter for .50 to 1.00 a pound. Of course there are costs involved in making it into useful sizes, like propane, time, grinding, etc.. so you will have to decide if it is worth it. Running my angle grinder for hours is not pleasant, at least for me.