forge welding pipe to hawk?

Will52100

Will52100

Joined
Dec 4, 2001
Messages
3,824
I've been playing with making a pipe hawk, and doing it with wrought iron, folded head and eye, and forge welding the bowl on. Unfortunately no success yet. I'm up to a bright buttery yellow and the bowel just won't stick, or if it does it pops off when I start reducing it just a bit.

Basically I folded the eye around a mandrel and inserted a high carbon bit, and did a little preliminary shaping, but left everything thick, especially the eye. I ground the back of the eye clean, forged out a plug a little larger than the width of the eye and ground a curve in the end to match the rear of the eye. A small tac weld to hold it together and heated and fluxed. When it was at a high welding heat I dropped the drift in the eye and lightly smacked the bowel/plug to weld it too the eye.

I'm using a gas forge, am I just not getting hot enough? In the old days this would have been done with a coal forge, and probably a little hotter. Am I missing a technique?

I can split the eye with a hot cut and drift, but I was hoping to figure out how to do the folded and welded pipe hawk. I have no problem folding and adding the high carbon bit, it's the blasted pipe bowel that is giving me fits.

This is driving me nuts, any ideas?

Thanks
 
Petersons tomahawk book shows the bowl as a separate piece fashioned with a saddle that is brazed on the head. Also the bowl as a pipe forced fitted in a hole. A round plug fitted in a hole, a wrap around head made as a hammer poll, then the poll is shaped to a bowl, and a dovetailed bowl attachment. All period correct.
 
Thanks, I didn't know brazing was period correct, but it should have occurred to me. The problem is I have no real training as a blacksmith, just blunder though and try and figure it out. Good suggestions, thanks.
 
Bright yellow isnt really hot enough to weld wrought to wrought.making a jump weld like that will require closer to white and still will be tricky to get...Some hawk bowls were brazed, Ive seen literature that said some were threaded then brazed..Ive also seen that the bowl was forged "down" over a mandrel from a thickened section..
 
Thanks for the link,

I've welded wrought iron with no problem in the yellow range, but I guess a jump weld like that has to be hotter. I'll keep playing with them and see what I can come up with.
 
BTW, thanks for the link Wildrose, it's got a ton of information on construction methods.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top