New steel bloom... kicking my butt. Help!

[Justin.Mercier]

So, I took part of a bloom of steel from a smelt, a small chunk around 1.5 lbs and was going to consolidate it today because I want to make just a small kiridashi from this material, for ashokan. Well, after a whole day, this thing is kicking my ass.


I'm wondering if the bloom just wasn't very good to begin with or what. After babying it for hours i got it all consolidated into one lump, lost well more than half the mass to scale and slag.


Here's what i started with

I got my forge up to a nice welding temp and put the biggest piece in.

I was being very careful with it, and using my fly press to consolidate it. The pieces of the bloom just crumbled however with any pressure. It took a long time to get much of any sort of base so i could put the smaller pieces ontop and weld them together.

Once i had a base the other pieces seemed to stick to it just fine, but I was losing an enormous amount of mateiral to slag and scale. I was trying to make sure i wasn't getting it /too/ hot, by watching when the silica in the bloom melted to know when the temp was best. The stuff seemed to stick together fine, but then at times it would essentially delaminate as i pressed a new piece into it. It was being very annoying and frustrating.

just about 4 hours later all that was left of my bloom was less about a quarter pound blob 3 inches long 2 inches wide and a quarter inch thick. So i guess this is what i'll have to now fold and keep consolidating , but at this point it doesnt seem like i'll even have enough steel left to do anything with, not even enough to forge weld it around a core for san mai =/

Was there anything I could have done while consolidating the lump to save more material? Is a bloom normally just plain crumbly with very little cohesion to begin with? or was this bloom just poorly formed? I'll be happy if i can salvage enough material to weld a thin layer to each side of a piece of 1095 or something now at this point just to get a 3" OAL length mini kiridashi or something. I've got to get that lump into a bar and draw it out and fold it a few times, and I figure i'll probably lose half again what's left at this point.

 

[TekSec]

Sounds to me it's working similar to what Del described to me about forging / consolidating meteorite. Maybe the same technique for that could work? Still pretty cool

 

[sunshadow]

You're going to lose a lot of mass as slag, you will lose a lot more as scale, you can cut your losses a lttle by boraxing the snot out of it

-Page

 

[delbert ealy]

Justin,
If it sparked a bit when you pulled it out of the forge, then your bloom may have had excessive carbon, from what you have stated so far it has all the signs. Mixing in a bit of wrought iron will draw off the excess carbon and give you a workable piece, I like the idea of wrought because it is very similar to what you are making, except for the difference in carbon. Any bloom of low-medium-high carbon steel should consolidate reasonably well within two folds. If you encounter a lot of sparking and it won't consolidate then you have cast iron.
I don't know how many blooms you have done, but it is much easier to make high carbon steel or cast iron than it is to make the lower carbon stuff.
Del

If you want to chat about blooms sometime, give me a call.

Adding 1095 would be adding insult to injury, I wouldn't.

 

[Justin.Mercier]

It didnt spark when i pulled it out of the forge, although it sparked a little bit initially when i first put it IN the forge, but i figured that was just some of the sponginess allowing some thinner sections to burn.

This was my first bloom, done at another's place so no prior experience working with any part of a bloom.

I sparked the bigger chunk of the few I had and it didn't spark like cast, which usually usually sparks and branches / bursts all over, it sparked more like a mid carbon steel.

I wasnt meaning adding 1095 so much as I'm assuming by the time i'm done i wont have enough metal to actually make even a 3" OAL blade, but if i wrap it around a core of some other steel then I'd be able to make sanmai and at least have the homemade steel visible on the outside.

I need to people up in my neck of the woods hwo are doing some smelting of their own. I would have loved to have made it out to Kevin Cashen's last weekend but the 13hour drive each way wasn't really feasible.

 

[sunshadow]

It didnt spark when i pulled it out of the forge, although it sparked a little bit initially when i first put it IN the forge, but i figured that was just some of the sponginess allowing some thinner sections to burn.

This was my first bloom, done at another's place so no prior experience working with any part of a bloom.

I sparked the bigger chunk of the few I had and it didn't spark like cast, which usually usually sparks and branches / bursts all over, it sparked more like a mid carbon steel.

I wasnt meaning adding 1095 so much as I'm assuming by the time i'm done i wont have enough metal to actually make even a 3" OAL blade, but if i wrap it around a core of some other steel then I'd be able to make sanmai and at least have the homemade steel visible on the outside.

I need to people up in my neck of the woods hwo are doing some smelting of their own. I would have loved to have made it out to Kevin Cashen's last weekend but the 13hour drive each way wasn't really feasible.

hey I did almost as far on a bike!

once I get caught up on my surgery backlog of orders I'm planning another smelt. Got 100 pounds of magnetite and some silica sand for mixing up a n ore analog similar to "DARC dirt"

-Page

 

[stephanfowler]

crumbly is kinda normal at first, takes some practice to get decent at consolidating without it falling apart.

the good news is it doesn't really matter

take all the bits that crumbled off, flatten em and set them up on top of a bigger piece and smoosh the whole thing.

after a while (and plenty of frustration) you'll find yourself looking at basically a single piece. fold it until it doesn't come apart when worked on edge and THEN start counting your folds

it's great fun really