ball bearings

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Mar 18, 1999
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went to a electric motor repair shop. i aquired eight 1/2" bearings these were round ball bearing if they are 52100 would the races be made of the same materials this would be cool i have forged the eight bearings into small billet and i am going forgeweld them together
to get a usable bilet. just to see if i can do it first time using 52100 hopefully thats what it is. but i going to treat as such.
 
The bearing races are not usually 52100,but case hardened steel.It works great to mix it in to your Damascus though.
Good luck on the billet,The ball bearings do forge in well,I have used them many times.
Bruce
 
I have a bag of these "steel marbles" that Ian (who is now 6 ) has been playing with. It never occured to me to forge them.

Has anyone tried berrings in a race as a domascus partern?
 
Well I don't want to start any thing but from what I've been able to gather the races of your bearings should be 52100 IF the bearings are. If you can read who the manufacture is you could give them a call or maybe look it up online to find out for sure. Just my $.02
 
thanks all the race of the bearing give off the same sparks as the bearings
 
According to Ed Fowler...Not all races are 52100 but some are.He suggests to make blades from the bearings and use the races in Damascus.That is all I know.
A friend of mine did forge out a race and it made a great knife.
The best way to find out is to anneal the race then heat it and quench it and then see if it breaks like it should,If it just bends than it is only case hardened,if it breaks like a file then it will heat treat and make a blade.
The reason here is that some bearings are cheaper than others.
Bruce
 
Caution when using bearings and races for forging. I spent a LOT OF TIME e-mailing and talking to 4 bearing manufacturers and they can be anything from case hardened to 52100 to a 440 type stainless to a BG-42 type of steel. Make sure you know what you got NOT JUST what the item is speced as. You could put a lot of time into something just to have it not take a proper heat treat because it is in fact not what you THINK it is.
 
As most of you know I forge a lot of 52100 steel.
I started out using 2" ball bearings, then went to 3 inch ball bearings. It took me a long time and the help of a metals lab Thanks to Rex Walter calling me and insisting that I try his steel, to discover all 52100 is not equal. I learned a lot working with differening batches of 52100 but when I started using the 52100 from Rex Walter, all forged down from 5 to 6 inch bar stock from the same heat I discovered the joy of using the same exact steel all the time. You can find Rex's Ad for 52100 steel in the classified ads in Blade Magazine. The trick is to do nothing to hurt the potential of the steel. WE are still working out the science behind what we have learned and will be sharing the information as it is emperically determined. Low temp forging is one of the keys, and Texaco Type A quenching Oil or equivalent is a must. Read my book, Knife Talk for more information. The next book is in the mill.
Not that I don't want to share here, but it is pretty detailed. Thanks for trying 52100.
 
Ed,Thanks for posting this up for us.Hope you do some more posting here as we would all love your insite and wisdom shared with us.
I went down to the scrap yard yesterday and found a couple of complete bearings (bearings inside of the races still) am going to try to forge this into a bar of Damascus and see what I get.Have you done this Ed...I like to experiment with different metals in my Damascus mix and so when Eric asked if anyone had tried this I figured why not.I will post a picture if it turns out good or I will let everybody know that it isnt a good idea to try.
Bruce
 
Hello Ed , Welcome to Shop Talk. Its good to see you here. Please stay and post. We can all benefit from your years and expertise in forging and damascus making.
 
Dick Iiams and I forged quite a bit of 52100 into Damascus. We used 52100 from bearings and mixed it with case hardened roller bearings. Some of it was OK. I took one billet up to 10,000 layers at the suggestion of Cleston Synard. I was going to go higher in layers but got distracted from the experiment. The 10,000 layers test blade cut better than the rest. Dick made some beautiful Damascus blades with it. We used to work on 4 or 5 experiments at a time, putting over 40 hours of shop time in a weekend was not uncommon, got mixed up as to which was which. Dick ended up with an 8 layer blade which was flawless. He found it to cut cery well, but not up to the level of the straight 52100. He sold the blade as a 'one of a kind' which it was. The patten was striking to say the least. He finished the blade into a folder. Dick was well on his way to becoming a great knifemaker. He is missed!

We were never able to make Damascus that was in the exceptional level of performance. Forging Damascus requires temperatures too high to allow full realization of the potential of 52100.
 
I got the bearing pouned into a billet 1"x 6"x 3/16 working a small billet is a pain in the butt just need to forge the proflie one thing i did notice is the after i flattenen the bearing and let them
cool i put the in a the vice to wire them together two of the peices cracked they air hardened dose 52100 have a tendecy to air harden
 
I have found that 52100 has a narrower forging range than some of the other steels. Working it too cold and then not normalizing it at least twice after forging may cause the stresses to build up and crack the steel. I haven't had any to air harden on me that I know of. You can work harden 52100 the same as any other steel but it isn't the same type of grain structure. I have also waited 7 days after hardening to temper and the tip broke a couple of days later when I hit it with a hammer on the anvil :(. It may make a short bladed skinner. :)
I have also forged a crack into a piece but that has mainly been at the tip when it folded over during forging. There are probably several more instances that I have forgotten at the present time. If you can, just stack them again and forge weld them together again.

Just some of things on what I have done.
 
Thanks for the welcome and kind words. Yes 52100 can air harden to a (for the lack of a better word) point. I have found that the forging range for high performance 52100 blades is 1625 f. down to when it quits moving under your hammer. More experiments are in the future. You can tell 1625 by watching the slag that comes off the heated blade with the first hammer blows. You don't want to see large sheets comming off, grain size will grow above 1700 f. I believe. The desired high temp. of 1625 gives you a safety cushion of 75 degrees. If you forge in this range, you should end up with a good blade. Should you overheat it for a short time, quench the blade in room temp quenching oil to a black heat, then re-heat and go back to forging.

Good luck and thanks again for the welcome.
 
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