Indian Geo chain

I cut the foil so it make a liner for the box. The reason for the liner is so the box will not weld itself to the billet. It will peel off after its forge welded and be discarded. Otherwise there is a whole lot of boring, time consuming grinding to do to get the box off. This way I just need to chop saw off both ends and grind off one corner so I can drive a chisel in to peel it off. Its quick and easy
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I filled it with very fine 1095 steel powder and placed a business card on top before putting on the lid. This paper will burn off any oxygen trapped inside which can sometimes expand and make the billet round. They dont always blow up like a balloon but I'm not taking the chance.
 
bruce....u should be declared the king of the "in progress thread"......amazing.....can't wait to see more.....ryan
 
Next I folded the foil over the top and put the lid on. I used my press to sqeeze it down tight and tack welded it. Finally I welded every seam closed air tight. If there is a pin hole it will show up when its almost at welding heat by spewing a stream of sparks like one of those cheap sparklers. It wont really hurt anything and will stop after the pressure relieves inside the canister. Its OK to let air out but not in.
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Well heck I'm out of pictures. I need to fire the forge and throw it in. Stay tuned and thanks for the interest in my world.
 
Thanks for posting the pictures of your progress. I am interested to see how these blades turn out.

Allen
 
It's been said before, but these progress pics are way cool Bruce! Thanks a lot for doing
them. I don't always comment, but I hang on every update.
 
You haven't got that done yet, Bubba?????? :confused::( Thanks for sharing BB. I am going to pickup some 1/16" wall sqaure tubing and do up a old HD chain I got here. I did up a chainsaw chain canister a few weeks ago, still have to draw it out.:thumbup:
 
indian george said:
You haven't got that done yet, Bubba?????? :confused::( Thanks for sharing BB. I am going to pickup some 1/16" wall sqaure tubing and do up a old HD chain I got here. I did up a chainsaw chain canister a few weeks ago, still have to draw it out.:thumbup:
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I'm sorry Geo, what did you say? I cant concentrate because of your Avatar :eek::D
 
I fired the forge this morning and made some more headway.

The following shots are simply heating the canister to about 2300 degrees and letting it soak for about 10 minutes and squeezing it down with the flat dies to make the weld. I swear the powder shrinks allot because the box instantly got loose and floppy on the billet. I welded it a couple times laying flat and on its side until it felt very stiff inside.

Next I chop sawed off both ends and slit it from end to end with a cut-off wheel. The skin peeled off like a bannaner.

Next I forged the billet and squared it up and drew it out an inch or so.
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I use spacers as stops so I can forge to a given thickness. These 1" spacers will let me stop at 1" thick billet.
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Here it is a couple inches longer than before and uniform size all around. It looks like I can only get 3 decent sized slabs from it because there is waste on the top and bottom but they should be nice patterns. We will see.

I did 3 thermal cycles to reduce grain size and stress relieve the bar. I want to anneal it so my band saw can slice it up. I use Lenox Diemaster 11 blades and it will take some time. A cold beer or two should help kill the boredom at the saw. If I had a bigger band saw I could just weld a stub on the billet and let the saw go for it and shut off after each cut automatically.
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Bruce
It is just so cool to watch excellence in action
I am not alone there are 20,300 hits on your current
follow alongs.
Thanks for taking the time to share your efforts
Tom
So.Ga.
 
I can hardly wait to see what comes out of this. I think you will have a couple wicked looking blades. Cant wait to see the next series of pics.
 
Bruce,

You certainly are a Maestro of Metal. I can't wait to see the final results of the beautiful symphony you're playing with that steel, so far it's superb (got music on my mind today :D).
 
T Blade said:
Bruce,

You certainly are a Maestro of Metal. I can't wait to see the final results of the beautiful symphony you're playing with that steel, so far it's superb (got music on my mind today :D).
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Just when I think I know what Im doing I drop my violyn in the dirt. :o
Remember I said the 1095 powder shrinks? Well there are some radial cracks around the edges and one troublesome crack that goes to the core. Now that I look at it I think if I would have simply sqeezed it down one time from the ends it would not have happened. Live and learn.

Not ready to throw in the towell....yet anyway...I am going to fix it and it will never show.

Here is the billet after the scale is ground away and reveals the edge cracks. The end of the center core at the point looks scetchty too.
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Here I am cutting it into 2 blanks. I really wanted 3 but it aint gonna happen. The bar isnt thick enough for 3 after forging them again later and surface grinding too.

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Here they are laid apart after the cut.
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The cracks dont go very far into the center of the bar but any crack at all is no good.

Here is where it gets interesting. I went down to the recycle hazard waste facility and they gave me about a half gallon of new battery electolyte otherwise known as sulfuric acid. I plan to soak the bars in it for a day or two and the acid will eat away the scale and flux in the cracks and open them up bigger. I should be able to simply forge weld the cracks closed again and forge the blade to shape also.

See ya Monday, have a good weekend.
 
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I get the one without the cracks?????:D I still have a whale's tooth waiting for my section.:thumbup::thumbup:;);)
 
If you want any help with the canister welds, George and BBBeaver will certainly vouch for my skills. If I remember correctly, BBBeaver said something to the effect of "he had never seen anything quite like it". That means it was good right??:D
 
toecutter said:
If you want any help with the canister welds, George and BBBeaver will certainly vouch for my skills. If I remember correctly, BBBeaver said something to the effect of "he had never seen anything quite like it". That means it was good right??:D
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Usually canister steel is pretty fool proof but considering this thing is almost all made from powder metal the chance are higher for something to go amiss.

Its all in good fun right? Geo has a dozen more antique Indian primary chains laying around.
 
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