any one use sand for forge welding?

Evan Miner

Evan Miner

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Nov 24, 2011
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This is kind of an odd question to be asking, when everything in knife making is trying to make a good quality knife. I that using a real flux is the best answer and proven way to forge weld. Has any one here experimented with using sand as your bonding agent? the first thing that comes to mind when i watched some one doing this on youtube was is the sand adding improprieties? Any insight would be great thank you
 
The old smiths used to do forge welding on low carbon steel with feldspar sand. It was finely ground and very clean. I wouldn't use it for damascus...unless you like pits and inclusions.
 
That's what i was thinking. Right now i make my knives using stock removal. Iv worked on forging a few blades but nothing past making a blank that was worth putting an edge on.but thank you for replying
 
first off flux is not a bonding agent it just excludes air from the billet which precludes the formation of oxides that would keep the billet from bonding. finely ground silica might work but why would you reinvent the wheel? borax is plentiful and cheep.
 
I did my first forge weld a few days ago, its just 3 layers of 15n20 and 1084. I was just happy to get a decent weld. I used borax.

I have done a ton of reading and there are all kinds of mixes guys have now, read up on iforgeiron and you can find them. Using steel powder mixed with borax and something else, things like that are suppose to work pretty good. Ofcourse so does kerosene if I remember correctly.
 
Why would you even think about using something like sand when you can buy 20 Mule Team borax at your grocery store and kerosene in the paint section of Home Depot?
 
jdm61 said:
Why would you even think about using something like sand when you can buy 20 Mule Team borax at your grocery store and kerosene in the paint section of Home Depot?
Click to expand...

Perhaps because sand doesn't constantly leach out of the weld and discolor your nice black wax finish? I'm not that fond of borax, I weld dry when possible, (though not with damascus unless it's ground and arc welded). It'll help a weld to stick, but it has its drawbacks.
I've seen some nice welds done with type S lime, too.
 
Thanks for all the info on the topic I'm still a little ways of from doing any major forge welds I'm even further off from attempting Damascus. I feel I need to at least hone my forging skills down to the basics before moving on to something ass complex as Damascus. But I couldn't help my curiosity when I saw some one forge welding with sand on YouTube. When I live not far from the beach. a 5gal bucket of sand would cost practically nothing but my time
 
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