WIP How I dry weld Photo intense Dialup Beware

[A C Richards]

I have done a couple of WIP's that show the process but I think I may have missed a few steps. So here we go. As you can tell the first photo is from the initial billet from this project. I am consolidating some of the photos but the process is the same.

First I start with clean material. Grind all the scale off. I have done this process without grinding the scale off but why take a chance.

Next weld the ends and cut sides to fit. The main billet is 1095 and 15N20. The sides are .0625 mild steel sheet. I do not put any covering on the edges of the billet. I just use the first and last layer as the exposed surface. I weld to these layers to make the sealed container.

I then fully weld up both ends sealing them from the atmosphere. This also attaches the sides as well.

Then I weld up all the seams. This will prevent all atmosphere from entering. This is the reason it is called dry welding. No flux it needed as it is all none in an inert atmosphere. I do not add any oil as there is enough remaining on the pieces to consume any oxygen remaining in the billet.

I made up 3 billets for this project. I wanted a large final billet to have enough material to make the very large and thick blade it is being used for. Here are the 3 billets in varying stages. The one on the right has finished its first weld. As you can see the sides are bulging out. I do not do any work on the sides until I remove the mild steel.

I will continue in the next post.

 

[A C Richards]

I work on the 3 billets in separate stages. I need to let one cool enough to remove the mild steel sides. I grind off most of the weldment then go at it with a chisel.

Next is the billet first weld and all the weldment cleaned off.

Repeat until all the billets are done with the initial weld and cleaned up.

These billets are made up of 1095 and 15n20. The 1095 is 3/16th and the 15n20 is double stacked 1/16th.

 

[A C Richards]

Now draw out as normal. Once the billets are at the first weld stage you can really go to town. I drew out 2 of these billets to use in the project. I also made up a fourth much smaller accent billet of 3 layers of 52100 and 2 layers of L6. I then re-stacked the billet. Weld up all the seams. and do it all over again. The final billet has 516 total layers. EDIT<I forgot to mention, I treat each fold the same as the initial weld. I press only the edges of the billet for the first weld. I grind off ALL the weldment before I press the sides again. I go so far as allow to cool and sand and etch to ensure the welds have been fully removed. It depends on the pattern. Normally I can see the weld as a solid line amongst the many lines of the billet. Especially when the layer count goes up. I also clean off between the layers before I stack. Depending on the pattern I will either grind it clean and flat with an angle grinder, this is for simple patterns, random, ladder or twist. For mosaics I will mill the layers flat then surface grind them.

A little press work

And a little hammer work to bring the billet to size.

Now comes the fun part. This is where I had problems before. I could not twist a large enough billet with my equipment. So Mike Turner volunteered to come up and provide some muscle. I made up a new twisting jig that uses a 1.5 hex socket with a 1" drive. Here is the contraption with the two of us setting up to do some serious twisting. I also have to give a big THANK YOU to Mikes wife Barbara for taking these photos.

We tried to heat with a combination of a blown nozzle from my salt pot and a small rose bud.

A little more grunt work and the twist gets started.

 

[Dan Pierson]

That's got to be the world's biggest allen wrench!

 

[A C Richards]

We decided the rosebud just did not give enough heat so we went back to he forge and tried to control the heat as much as possible. We would put in only the length we were trying to twist.

Now a little more muscle ala Mike and we are almost there.

Here is the finished billet. I am going to use the most even section for the knife I am building.

And here is the forged billet. It is 15" long 2.5 wide and .5 thick. Plenty of material for the blade. I will forge it out and post when it is done.

If I left anything out please ask and I will do my best to fill in the gaps. Have a good week and take care.

 

[A C Richards]

That's got to be the world's biggest allen wrench!

Dan

It is quite large. My blacksmith mentality showing again, bigger is always better:thumbup:. I used a 1" drive socket so the bar is just a 1" square bar bent 90 degrees and welded to a length of square tubing. It is about 4-1/2 feet long. I wanted lots of torque to twist this billet.

 

[Wulf]

Thanks Chuck - great pictures and very informative. But may I ask a stupid question? Why dry weld? Seems like a lot of extra effort... What are the advantages?

 

[blindhogg]

Great WIP, thanks for sharing it with us.
CW

 

[Phillip Patton]

Thanks Chuck - great pictures and very informative. But may I ask a stupid question? Why dry weld? Seems like a lot of extra effort... What are the advantages?

Just what I was going to ask.

 

[Sam Salvati]

COOOOOOL! thanks Chuck and Mrs Mike

 

[A C Richards]

Why Dry Weld???? A couple of reasons. First when I wet weld and go through all the steps required, clean off between each and every heat. Soak adequately and try to do everything perfectly I was still getting about a 10% failure rate. Not really big problems but just a little pit here and there. A small inclusion that would make me fail the whole knife. I am pretty picky when it comes to inclusions or cold shuts. I will not knowingly send a knife out with one. With dry welding I get about a 99% success rate. Just so long as I do not take any shortcuts.
Secondly, I feel I get a much cleaner and stronger weld. When I did some W pattern wet I could see the final weld zone. It showed 2 ways, a slight hazy effect around the weld and also a noticeable difference in etch depth after final finish. With a dry weld you cannot tell the final weld. This to me indicates a better weld. It is especially noticeable when tiling a mosaic. I hate the silver line between tiles. So now I tig the tile together and it is very hard to see that weld zone. Only when the pattern is interrupted can you find the weld.

If I spend an extra 25% of my time getting a 99% success rate the time saved to me is worth it. Since I do mostly more intricate patterns and large billets the material loss and time savings can be significant if I do not have to redo one billet out of 10.

 

[A C Richards]

Another way I could tell it is a better weld is when twisting. In a wet weld I always had a few seams open up when I would do a really tight twist. I could fix them with the next re-weld but they still opened up. On this billet I had no edges open up. The only splits I had were on the very ends were I welded the hexbar onto the billet for twisting.

 

[Wulf]

Thanks Chuck - there's no substitute for experience. I'll have to try it myself.

 

[Mike Turner]

Chuck that was a lot of fun my friend and we learned a lot figuring out the best way heat that and twisting it and let me tell you I had all my 245 pounds on the end of that bar.

Hey Chuck what was the diameter of that, it was 2" right?

And Sam Mrs. Mike says your welcome .

 

[A C Richards]

Yea that was all of 2", maybe slightly over. It finished out at 2" on the money. The previous bar I twisted was about 1.25. I have twisted 1.5 but It was very hard to do. With that new jig it will be a lot easier to get things nice and tight. Now I need to find a good 1" socket wrench to use on it.

Thanks again Mike it was a lot of fun, hard work but fun.