Question on interrupted forging

B

bennett

Joined
Sep 22, 2005
Messages
212
Hi ya'll.
Not trying to coin a new technical term (interrupted forging), but have a quick question about it anyway. I want to begin forging a large blade tonight when I get home from work. Timing is perfect - my wife has to work until nearly midnight:D Problem is, I'd have to stop at about 9:30 due to noise rules in my neighborhood. Is it OK to put a forging aside, and resume it the next day? Will this cause problems with the final product? As usual, your thoughts and input are most appreciated. Happy holidays!
 
Should be no problem, do what forging you can, then start again the next day.

Long as you don't over heat and don't skip thermal cylcles at the end before grinding and heat treat you should be OK. I've done it that way several times, I just bring the blade up to heat slowly for the first time, then forge normaly.
 
SOme times you will forge a blade and leave it, look at it the next day or next week and see it is not quite what you want, or a little out of alignment, as Wil says as long as you go throught the cycles no problem. I have done it without failure.

Having said that if you forge from start to finish in as few heats as posible you tend to get less scale build up and less decarburising of the surface metal. Less pits.
 
No problem.One good thing to do is to stick the blade in the annealing box when you are done for the night.That way it can't form any hardened areas by air hardening.When you are ready to get back to it and it will be fresh and ready for the hammer.
 
Just to throw in a little more for you to consider, If you are using low temp forging, when you have to stop, clean up dents and radical discrepancies on the surface, in other words forge it as clean as you can, then heat to non magnetic and let it cool in still air, in other words a full normalizing heat. It will be waiting and if you are using low temp forging you will not loose any carbon through excessive cycles. You did not state what steel you are using, but if you are using good clean quality 5160 or 52100 you should not have any poblems, if there are faults in the steel you are using they may grow.
Good Luck
 
Ed nailed it, that really depends upon the steel you are using. 1095, 1084, 1080, 1070, it won't know the difference between a lower forging heat and you just walking away from it for a while. The deeper hardening the steel the more mormalizing you will need before just walking away. A good reason for many folks not to use O1/L6 mixes is because if you don't very carefully normalize your way down to good homogeneous soft state, the stuff is capable of blowing itself apart when shaped in odd cross sections (been there more than a couple of times:( ). I will rarely light my forge unless I have a full day to devote to the project, du to the alloys I like.

If it is shallow hardening, like 10xx stuff, it forms pearlite everytime it cools anyhow so there is no concern, but if the steel can form any other products in air when cooled from critical then you need to be more careful.
 
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