welding question

jdm61

jdm61

itinerant metal pounder
Joined
Aug 12, 2005
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Is it possible, or practical to weld two pieces of high carbon steel like W2 together using a small piece of the same steel as a welding rod? I was thinking about the possibility of welding up an "integral" like the stainless knife shown in one of Wayne Goddard's books, then normalizing and heat treating as usual.
 
Joe,
I think the critically important item on manufactured rods is the flux coating which creates a gas shield around the weld pool, preventing oxidation at that high temp. Without it there will be lots of oxides contaminating the weld and you would struggle to get a sound welded joint. Im no expert on the actual weld rod materials, but as far as I remember, the rod always intentionally has a different composition to the parts your welding. This is to give it better melting/ welding/ oxidation etc proprties

Lang
 
if you were to use a tig welder it would be possible, but probably not practical.
 
jdm61 said:
Is it possible, or practical to weld two pieces of high carbon steel like W2 together using a small piece of the same steel as a welding rod? I was thinking about the possibility of welding up an "integral" like the stainless knife shown in one of Wayne Goddard's books, then normalizing and heat treating as usual.
Click to expand...

I have welded mild steel many times using parent metal rods and a gas torch but I think you would need the argon gas of a tig welder for stainless.
 
Joe,
I think you could use strips of W2 and an oxy/acetylene torch to do it. Also, it used to be you could get welding rod for using with most types of tool steel. Good luck with THAT. :)
 
Well if you use oxy acetylene you are going to burn out a bunch of carbon I think. If I was to do this I would do a full penetration weld using a tig set up and argon. Use a rod or very thin strip of the parent metal for filler. Full pen means you bevel the pieces to be joined to an edge and then weld the edge of the bevel then fill the groove out till over flush. You would still lose a bit of the properties of the alloy in the areas affected by the heat but, not inside the argon sheild. After a couple of normalizing cycles you should be good. Now if you only wanted to install a well attached guard you can fit it to the blank and with the guard beveled in where it meets the blade and weld that bevel out. If you use a rod like 309 on stainless (stick or tig) you should be ok for that and then file off the excess. If this is not in the blade area itself and you normalize the area you would not affect the blade. I have done this and it works well. Depending on the finish and the type of stainless you can see a slight color change. You could weld something on a steel like W2 with 7018 or 1 1/14 chrome rod on 5160 and have it come out. Just don't use it in the blade area and I would heat sink the blade and anneal the guard area a bit more after HT and temper to assure my self that I didn't have a stress zone in the weld area. I welded some guards on when I was first learning (I am a fitter/welder by trade) and they came out well. I have never had one break. But I have not had them used as pry bars either.

Tig welding with the parent metal as a filler is by far the superior way to go. Less impurity and better control. Your high heat is in a smaller zone and you can push the metal in the puddle around with the arc force without having to constantly add to the puddle like rod. You can blend your edges in much better. It is like brazing or torch welding except you have a far far superior heat source and the shielding.
 
it is certainly possible. If you do or think about doing much welding, do consider
most excellent $500 TIG welder from Grizzly: http://www.grizzly.com/products/h8153
It gets 5 stars from me.

High-carbon steels, including "plain" carbon variety of 1075+, W1, W2, O1, will harden
when welded and you will need to anneal or normalize it after such welding, before
HT. You'd need to be fairly delicate when welding smaller items, so that resulting heat
doesn't lead to warping or cracking .

Another thing that doesn't get nearly the attn it deserves, is spot welding: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=45690

With this method, you should be able to spot weld finger guards, bolsters, butts
etc . Wonder if anyone has used this method in KM ?
 
If you use a neutral or slightly reducing flame, you shouldn't burn out any carbon. Might actually add some...
 
True on the flame not burning out any carbon itself but your steel is still hot to the point of melting and normal atmosphere is 20.5% 02. I would think it fine for guards and such no matter what happens though. I think that how well the joint is relieved after the weld is far more critical to the strength than the particular method if that method is done well.
 
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