flux question

[Bart student]

Hello folks,

I was thinking about trying some more damascus, since last worked out O.K. ... but then I looked at my flux box, a box filled with white powder, which is starting to become crumbly..guess the salt is binding together with water.

Is that Bad? If it is Bad, how to prevent it?

Another thing... the greyish stuff around welding rods, is that borax too in some composition?

And how do you make borax more agressive to deal with the yellow nickle oxidation?

Thanks in advance for the answers,

Greetz, bart.

 

[L6steel]

Aren't you supposed to dry it in an oven and then keep it in a sealed container like an ammo can to keep the moisture out???

 

[Bruce Evans]

I kep my 20 mule team Borax in a 5 gallon bucket out in the smithy and I forget to put the lid on most of the time.I get dried hard pieces that fall off billets when I am coating them and all that I do is break it up some and use it anyway.I have no problem with this at all.I am sorry but I can't help with the nickel problem,maybe someone else has the answer.
Bruce

 

[AchimW]

Bart, don't bother with crumbling. Just keep the stuff in an iron box and crush it from time to time with a piece of thick round bar like in a mortar. I flux my bars over the box i use and let the cooking off pieces fall into the box again. So most of the borax in it is pretty dry. I use very few borax on my welds.

If you have got yellow oxydation take care! Never saw that from nickel but a lot from zinc. That's toxic!

Achim