What a day! forge welding

Sam Salvati

Sam Salvati

Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,060
Decided to break my forge's welding cherry, and do some forge welding. I got some cruforgeV from my buddy Steve and got to thinking what would be cool to make a san mai with it. It was 1/4"x1" and all I had was A36 and some pure iron "double 00" in the same dimensions. With such an exotic material as the cruforgeV (ahh something new young and hip :D) I figured it would be coolest to go with the double 00. It worked!!!!! My second successful san mai!!!! I have to say my NC knifemaker forge performed most excellent, and welded at 7-8 PSI no problem. The billet seems solid, no color differentials when heating and cooling, no black seams, and seemed fine with being forged into a blade. DAMN NEIGHBOR! I wish I could have used the powerhammer to draw the billet out, but it was only 3/4"x1" when welded and it drew out by hand just fine.
 
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Oh it happened :D I only got it profile ground tonight, will start grinding in bevels tomorrow, keeping my fingers crossed for clean welds.
 
What?! Forge welding without a power hammer. Nonsense! :)

Hmm, I've been thinking about doing a San Mai but I have no clue where to start, any tutorials? Or am I thinking that its more difficult than it really is?. Ooh, I don't know if I can use borax in my forge, probably not as it's only satanite with ITC 100 on top.
 
Yes you can use borax in your forge. Satanite will hold up well. It will degrade after a while but that should be a long way off. If you do not want to use flux, why not try to dry weld. If you have a way to weld up the seams you do not need any flux. I do 90% of my forge welding dry. If I use flux it is just as a little extra insurance. The benefits of dry welding are, lower welding heat, better bonding, if done right (clean all surfaces before stacking) you can achieve close to 100% success. Drawbacks, it takes more time to set up as you need to let the billet cool to re-stack, more material loss due to having to grind off the weldment and cleaning the surfaces. I take it one step further and mill all my surfaces between welds. This ensures a perfect contact thus weld. If I really want to make sure they stick I surface grind them. All you need to do this is a way to weld up the seams, then a way to clean up the billet. Give it a try I think you will love it.

Oh I forgot to add a couple benefits, NO FLUX, LONGER FORGE LIFE.
 
69,

For san mai take your center material and outer layers. The outside material should be about 1/2 the thickness of the center but same rectangular dimensions. Grind all surfaces clean and flat. Stack, and either tack or weld up the seams. If you try the dry weld just stick it into the forge and allow it to reach welding temps. You can weld below the 2200F ranges dry but I still take it up to 2250-2350 just to make sure. I let it soak for 10minutes for small san mai billets. Bring it out and hammer the sides. I would do this twice just to ensure a good weld. After the second time grind off all the weldment and check for good bond. I stick it into some FC to see the center line contrast. If you got a good weld the forge it to shape. To get a good side pattern, forge the bevels to about 80% ten grind the rest. Make sure you work each side evenly. If you do not the contrast will be off from side to side. Some difference is ok but drastic differences make it look off balanced. Give er a try. Good luck
 
Chuck, Damn, that is good to know. For a san mai, there would only be one weld and not too much loss from grinding. I will definitely be looking into that.
 
For San Mai it works great. I have done several and not one single failure...... In fact I have not had one single material failure on any dry welds. I have had pattern screw ups but that's another story.

Sorry Sam for hijacking your thread. Back on topic, Were are the Pics???
 
Chuck no biggy, i'm just excited, if there is any credible information to be added by all means add it!
 
PIctures are forthcoming, had to use my sis' camera with good macro.

WOW!!! There is some interesting stuff going on! If it wasn't for Kevin's micrographs of the stainless clad 1095 san mai blade and the following explainaition of such I would have not known what exactly was going on. What it seems the pure iron did was at the boundary with the CruforgeV, it sucked a bunch of the carbon out of it and into itself. The effect is almost exactly the same looking as the effect on Burt's stainless/1095. The etched blade was CRAZY! all kinds of different effects going on, on the iron side of the weld, right along the barrier in some spots were little silvery dots, but not everywhere along the boundary. The exposed CruforgeV edge had a lighter look close to the barrier, then got darker towards the edge, and the iron was darker at the boundary and lighter as it went towards the spine. The edge is file tested hard, not sure how hard it actually is. I quenched in park's.

I am going to sharpen it and give it a test, I look forward to more experienced opinions on what is going on(as soon as i get the pictures up).
 
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OK jerkwads :D

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Wow sam, the all words no pictures was reminding me of a certain Nick Wheeler thread :)
once you put in pictures . . . nice work!

-Page
 
Looks good Sam! Now, go toss it in the pile with the rest of "the unfinished" and start again! :D

-d
 
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