Metal Working and Metallurgy
There have been many discussions about weapons, armour, etc, and a topic that often comes up is metal working, so I thought I'd make a thread to discuss a topic dear to my heart, metallurgy. I'm not a chemist, but metal has been a hobby of mine for years, snd I do have some formal metallurgy education, so I might be able to answer any questions.
Also made the thread because I felt like blabbing a bit about an experiment I'm slowly working on. Using some very brittle (and likely extremely cheap gray cast) cast iron scrap from a burner, I welded a thin strip (~1/8th, maybe 3/16th thick, and a bit under an inch wide, 4 inches long) I cut and partially cleaned (did not grind out pits of rust) to some structural steel (low carbon, the cheap stuff). The goal was to make a fairly hard edge for an axe I'm working on, while still having the bulk of the material still soft and thus not brittle. Well, I did a solid job getting the cadt iron welded on, then added more welds to dilute the VERY soft, brittle cast iron. I have just finished grinding it back down to look axe-like, and curious what the proprrties of the diluted metal are like, I put a very sharp edge on part of it. Then, being the wannabe metallurgist I am and having no tools to test, I checked if the newly made steel was harder than structural. The new edge without a bevel could shave structural steel, without noticeably dulling.
Sounds like I made carbide!
So, pretty hard, especially since this isn't even hardened! Next I'll be using it as an axe, after I carve out a sturdy handle, to test resilience. Just welding that bit of cast is an accomplishment, really. Its prone to cracking pretty badly. And just straight up burning... as in, it burns if you weld it too hot.
Also made the thread because I felt like blabbing a bit about an experiment I'm slowly working on. Using some very brittle (and likely extremely cheap gray cast) cast iron scrap from a burner, I welded a thin strip (~1/8th, maybe 3/16th thick, and a bit under an inch wide, 4 inches long) I cut and partially cleaned (did not grind out pits of rust) to some structural steel (low carbon, the cheap stuff). The goal was to make a fairly hard edge for an axe I'm working on, while still having the bulk of the material still soft and thus not brittle. Well, I did a solid job getting the cadt iron welded on, then added more welds to dilute the VERY soft, brittle cast iron. I have just finished grinding it back down to look axe-like, and curious what the proprrties of the diluted metal are like, I put a very sharp edge on part of it. Then, being the wannabe metallurgist I am and having no tools to test, I checked if the newly made steel was harder than structural. The new edge without a bevel could shave structural steel, without noticeably dulling.
Sounds like I made carbide! So, pretty hard, especially since this isn't even hardened! Next I'll be using it as an axe, after I carve out a sturdy handle, to test resilience. Just welding that bit of cast is an accomplishment, really. Its prone to cracking pretty badly. And just straight up burning... as in, it burns if you weld it too hot.
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Other than cast, the rule of thumb is that higher tensile strength/harder materials are more brittle. So, carbide tends to be brittle, while bronze is not. Finally, if you cut a sample off, you can polish snd etch it to microscopicly examine the grain structure of your metal, and gain some insight into composition. You don't need a grest microscope for this even!
The final easy option, and best, look up the information for the classification of your metal. Codes exist to dictate minimums and maximums for metals, both in terms of mechanical properties and chemical composition. Brittle materials will perform poorly under the impact testing, but verify the test wasn't done in very cold conditions. Materials are often tested sprcifically to verify thst even in extreme cold they remain ductile. So if you aren't using equipment in -40 degree weather, your material doesn't need to handle it!
I did a much less gentle test out of extreme curiosity, and having read some likely a bit exagerated stuff about true damascus swords remarkable properties... I tried chopping a nail. First fairly gentle, noted a significant mark on the nail and no effect on the axe! So, I wacked it harder, making a bigger mark, still no damage to my new axe! So I gave it a decent blow, hard enough to sink the nail into the 2x4 sideways, and put a very significant mark on the nail. No mark on the axe!
Tommorrow I'll try putting a nail on some hardwood, so it'll actually get cut I hope, rather than sinking in so much. Very good start on my experiment! Might do some fine tuning on the axe head to improve it's splitting performance.
It's very minimal. That's the nice word for it, anyway. No edge, no point, only a costume piece, I just wanted it to look cool(I sorta got there:/) I bought the metal at a normal hardware store, where for some reason they sell long, strikingly sword-like pieces of steel. I honestly don't know what it's called or intended to be used for.
I used lump charcoal in a chimney and put the leaf blower in it, which gets surprisingly hot. I was able to pound out a tang and a little but of a point with a small hammer on a granite landscaping boulder:)
I told you it was minimal.
After that I did a significant amount of sanding with a little drill-driven power grinder.
The tang is sideways, to short and to thick, so I wasn't able to attach the handle properly. The pommel is a pice of compeer pipe filled with sodded wire and duct taped on to the end, and it doesn't quite weigh enough. The guard is a piece of wire I cut out of a yard sign.
I was able to drill one hole for a screw so I could secure the handle, but I was mysteriously not able to drill another one anywhere in the tang with any assortment of drill bits.
Over all it was an... Educational experience, but I think I was good enough for and 8-year olds costume. I wouldn't try and poke anyone with it though.
A really good trick for grips btw is to use soft wire, ideally copper, but I use galvinized steel wire a lot, its cheaper! Absorbs some shock, gives something to grip, and you can either add tape or or leather over top. Does wonders for balancing things too, as the wire adds weight. If you need even more weight, you could try leaded solder wire, if you can still find it. I welded up a steel box once, and filled it with lead (very low melting point), made a nice counter balance. The chopper was still a tad awkward though. Might need to do some additional grinding.
I used to have a very small forge, but it was hard to heat anything not tiny in it, very frustrating. I am a decent welder and good grinder though, so I use this more atm to shape metal. You might want to look into an angle grinder @meagloth they are very useful for removing metal and initial polishing. Wear eye protection though, consider a face shield if you get a wire wheel for it. Get a small one first, unless you're doing heavy grinding it should work. Try using it flat, to avoid digging into the metal, and always keep a tight grip with both hands.
My 'bigger' project though will require some forging, but not very hot forging, as I want carbide to form and stay around. Going to try to make a granular type watered steel knife, which will mean some forging. The axe edge is a prototype, hoping to improve on it.
@CrevsDaak I got a small but VERY nasty burn from a glowing coal once, took months to heal. Probably 3rd degree. The scar is interesting though, looks vaguely like an eye on the back of my hand. I get lots of small scorches from welding, but only one serious burn. Learned to wear long gloves while torch cutting! Safety is nice, minor burns aren't a big deal, but injuries suck.
I have a walking stick I made in varsity, which is around 1.6m (5 feet), as opposed to most sticks which are about 1m (3 feet). It's an inch or so wide (30mm), so nice to grip. I basically grabbed a wooden curtain pole from my dad's workshop, carved a snake head on one end, and fitted a copper ring on the other end to prevent splintering. Unfortunately it's really light wood, so good for walking and carving, but bad as a weapon.
This was the snake head, although narrower, chosen because I'd just been to Vic falls and did the white water stretch there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyami_Nyami
Anyway, on to the current stick. I bought 2m (7 feet) of copper pipe, 22mm I think, which is a bit too narrow. I may wrap some leather around it at two points. Inside this are two 1m segments of 10mm threaded rod, with a coupling nut on each end and a third one joining the two rods. Two copper end pieces finish it all off. The entire thing will probably be pretty robust when it's done, but is currently a bit light. Also inconveniently long, but the rods are probably beyond my ability to shorten. The rods are currently rattling around in the pipe, so need to be fixed in place.
The first problem is I have no idea how to weld copper, but it's probably not that hard if you don't mind making a couple of mistakes. The weight I plan to address by filling both ends with lead fishing sinkers, and then heating to melt the lead. This should stop the ends rattling, and I'll probably wrap the centre coupling nut in a piece of rag or something.
Obviously this can go wrong in lots of ways, firstly, if the copper end pieces come off, then molten lead will pour onto my heat source, and toxic fumes will put me in the hospital. So I'll probably do this outside over a benzene hiking stove, with insulated gloves, a mask, and remembering to hold the end piece on.
Secondly, the top sinkers could slide down while I'm melting the bottom end, which would give me a staff with one heavy end and one light end. Well actually it couldn't because of the central coupling nut. So actually I can leave the middle section empty. I initially thought of putting river sand in the middle, but that would mix in with the lead too much.
So, do you think I need to solder the ends closed before I melt the lead, or can I do both in one go? For that matter, they used to use lead as solder, only stopped because toxic water sux, so do I even need to solder at all? Probably yes.
Another point, once I have one end done, and I'm heating the other end, is copper a good enough heat conductor that the first end will melt again?
On that note, there's a chance that the little hiking stove won't even get the end I'm heating up to 330 degrees C (621 degrees F), so the lead won't melt at all. Well hey, then I'll get a proper gas torch. My mother-in law will be happy with that, she keeps talking about making creme brulee.
Welding copper is very challenging... its crazy conductive, and has a low melting point. Its also expensive to practice. Usually copper piping is just soldered. Soldering isn't too trickey, but the msterial must be very clean. Its pretty strong if you do it right, remember copper pipes for water are pressurized! Not super high pressure, but pressure finds faults. If you are connecting lengths of copper pipe, I would get a coupler fitting, a straight joint. These are available anywhere they sell copper pipe, and are cheap. Just solder to join the pieces.
Eh, I don't think lead makes toxic fumes, unless its very dirty. Lead is not very reactive, which is why its so useful. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult for your body to 'pass'. Wear gloves though when handling, and wash thoroughly after handling any lead. What kind of end piece are you using? If its a copper pipe end made for thst size, it ought to be reasonably tight. A bit of pressure you keep it from leaking readily, but remember, if lead is running out, its melted, so just set the molten end down on the cap to cool. To melt the other side, just let the first end cool, then heat. Copper is conductive, but not THAT conductive. I've soldered pipes, and never had a previous solder melt out on me while heating another joint. Use pliars to hold the pipe, or wrap a cotton towel around it in addition to the gloves. Pliars are nice.
If you're feeling adventerous, a glob of clay would probably work to hold the cap on while you are heating it. In my area, I can dig for clay, but you might not have that option. You can remove the clay blob from the end after you finish and everything is cooled down.
The only real issue with the heating is that you sren't directly heating the lead, so it'll take time.
Based on the thumbnails these my not be right side up so I apologize in advance. Also, the looked more in focus on my phone screen:)
If you to make a heavier one, a welding gauntlet is perfect, even has the big cuff to protect your wrist, which is nice if you fence with jerks that whack your wrist.
Traditional western armourers were incredibly skilled, usually the best metal workers you could find. Working cold iron at serious precision sounds more like a machinist than a smith. In the east, some armour was even made of watered steel.
I finished up my splitting axe and its handle, and have split some kindling. Seemed pretty effective, but the real challenge will be bigger piecesmof knotty hardwood. Might need to finetune the splitting aspect, but the weight is nice, and the eye seems to grip better than a standard axe or maul. I used a piece of live cut elm for the handle... unfortunately, its not very carvable wood (so I had to mostly sand... ugh), but elm is really tough. Should be pretty strong, despite being light.
My heavy kukri nearly has the edge polished up, so I can maybe put on a grip soon. I have cut some light wood, works similar to a hatchet, but is pretty sharp atm, and seems to hold the edge well. The edge is a welded on file, so its very hard steel, but the backing of softer steel indeed keeps it tough. Ancient technology can work very well! Looks scary as heck though, and the forward curve makes it cut interestingly... on a calm day, you can slice through a leaf and not disturb it (ie totally clean cut, no resistance). I have lighter, thinner machetes that can't do this... the blade is pretty thick actually, about 5/16ths thick, probably 3/8ths at the thickest beside the blood gutter. Probably do steel wire for the grip, then wrap with leather... might put a pic or two up this weekend.
My bar of iron carbide I made is unforgeable... even after serious annealing. It cracks, which is kinda expected. I have some ideas that might help make this into a useful product, diluting imho will be important, and having a softer steel coating the very high carbon might well be the trick. So, sounds like some more welding! The neat thing, if I can keep the coating of ductile steel thin enough, grinding it off will still leave very hard steel, with a softer core. The other idea I have is forging the metal at pretty high heat, which might require a better heat source. If the steel is really hot, the structure changes, which might make the bar significantly softer during forging, allowing drawing out. The other plus, forging at this heat would remove some imperfections like gas pockets, which seem to be making my project brittle.
Possibly of interest, I am working on forging some old mower blades. Until I get my goal steel, it might be necessary to play with this sort of thing to improve my forging technique. Hammering isn't as easy as it looks! Well, I'm burly enough the hammering isnt physically THAT arduous, but keeping the blows precise and flat is a bit involved. The one blade seems to be a carbon steel, as it was very rusted/pitted and is pretty hard, but the other is possibly an unusual stainless. Duplex I think, very very strong, but generally not super hard. Great for a machete though, and I might try and work harden the edge a bit, which would make it harder. It should be ductile enough to not risk cracking. Maybe. Heat treating will be... interesting.
My mind is also shifting back to making my sword(a better one than last time) though I still need an anvil; landscaping boulders only go so far:P Thanksgiving break is coming and I'd like to get started on the sword I had designed for myself. I think I learned a lot and got some good practice from my first project and would like to attempt something a bit... Less duct-tapey. I have some new ideas(I've also abandoned the gas-fueled moonblade functionality idea for now, in favor of a more functional sword:) I'll come back to it though)
Asduming you can get some useable steel, try for ~3/16 thick. Any thicker will be absurdly heavy for a normal person, and not much stronger.
An option might be to visit a scrap dealer actually, if you don't have a local retailer of 'exotic' metal. I have made very functional tools from scrap, including a massive tree chopping sword, which was made in a not dissimilar way to what I explained... its not really a sword, but its cut down many hardwoods with very little maintenence.
I would make a couple knives first, getting bigger each time before tackling a full size sword. The techniques will be comparable, but mistakes will be cheaper. You can also make a practice sword out of the steel sold at smaller hardware stores. Make sure its hot rolled steel, not shiney cold rolled, which costs more and is brittle! By grinding out a cheap practice sword (which you would use for actual practice!), you can finetune what weight and balance is comfortable for you! Custom stuff is nice for this, because few sellers know how to 'pick' a sword that'll fit your build correctly, if they even carry such a sword.
If you use unheat treated tool steel, don't worry too much, it won't be as hard, but will be quite durable. More sharpening, but the blade won't snap! Properly hardening a sword eould require a fair bit of heat, and tempering it well is an advanced technique.
If you buy an anvil, make sure it isnt too small... bigger is definately better. Ideally, it should ring nicely, if you tap it with a hammer, but some good ones don't ring, so thats not a strict rule. Used to be there was only one was to make an anvil, to cast it whole. Not true anymore!
I don't really have any tools to speak of but for a hammer, a small drill-powered sander, and a drill with some various bits scattered about the basement floor. I think, like usual, I will mess around until I either find something that looks good or get tired of not finding something that looks good.
As for anvils big seems to be hard to find. I don't have $600 to drop on normal stuff, let alone a real anvil. I was thinking along the lines of these "railroad track anvils" I keep seeing on ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-RAILROAD-TRACK-ANVIL-15-LBS-BLACKSMITH-SILVERSMITH-ETC-/131351699238?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e952bdf26
Or find a cheap, no-$20-shipping equivalent on that eventual trip to the scrap yard.
An angle grinder is a pretty cheap tool, and VERY fast compared to anything similar. Try to get a 5in one if you do, they tend to be more rugged than 4.5in ones, and you can still use either size disc. You need eye protection, and a cheap air particle filter is sensible (but most guys wouldn't bother unless they are doing serious grinding). There really is no substitute though for the kind of work you're thinking about though. I can't think of a more useful tool than an angle grinder for metal work, honestly. You can produce very high quality blades without an anvil or forge, and with relative ease if you have a grinder and a good vice or clamp.
Doing work on a nifty little machete atm, finishing touches mostly. Seems pretty effective so far, the steel is good, since I forged the blade from a big lawn mower blade.
Less happy so far with my other blade I was forging at the same time, though it's not nearly as far along, and much more massive. It'll be a two hander, and is a bit like a kopesh, though not an excessively curved one. That steel is also from a mower, and I welded two blades together to make one longer one, but I think using MIG welding instead of good old stick welding was a poor choice. I'll almost certainly reweld it, but it did hold up to testing without breaking, so it might do okay. I'll probably use it to hack at scrub trees to see if it'll fail, we've got tons of pest trees in the area. The steel is pretty weird stuff though, might be a very lean duplex stainless, or some other alloy, but it's not plain carbon steel for sure. VERY tough stuff, but not ultra-hard, so edge retention may not be much better than stainless, but less painfully tedious to sharpen.
Might have worked out a half-decent forge idea, which would be nice. Forging from a wood furnace isn't terrible, but it's not always the most practical, and without forced air it's hard to get the fire hot enough. On the plus side though, I don't have to worry about overheating anything.
Hope to put a few pics up of stuff soon, though so far only one thing really looks 'finished' fully, since most of what I make is to actually USE, so it's rough looking but functional. My 12lb chopping sword though looks pretty impressive imo, despite it's simplicity (and repairs! who breaks 1/4 X 4 in VERY STRONG steel!? twice! sheesh! the welds hold though heh). It's not QUITE a Guts sword, but it's definitely absurdly big. Takes truly massive chunks of wood out though.
Bringing it back to metallurgy, I made the razor by taking some scrap structural steel, and then welded on a piece of gray cast iron, and the diluted it down to what is probably a very high carbon steel, or a very, very lean white cast iron, as I also hardened the blade after I had it 'done'. I had to re-grind the one side a great deal though, after I found my bevel (IE the angle made by the blade in this case... needed to be much more acute, to make the edge thinner) to bulky. So, I hollow ground one side and was pleasantly surprised to find what appeared to be some graphite bearing cast fairly far into the hollow grinding, so I have a nifty looking razor now, should I choose to do more finishing work on it. I hope to examine this under a microscope some time, to see what the grain structure is like, especially the transitions from low carbon to welded cast/very high carbon, and even look at the piece of cast. Depending on the light, the welded portion is a slightly different shade than the structural steel, which is also cool, and this will likely become more pronounced as the blade gets a bit of oxidation going, as they should not be affected exactly the same. I could etch it too, which would bring out the difference sharply, but I suspect shaving foam will help etch it anyways over time.
If anyone is curious, you really cannot put a mirror finish on cast iron if it still has ANY graphite present... white you probably can, but it is not going to be fun polishing that. That cast iron I welded on must have a ridiculously high carbon content though. Diluting it is nifty.
I shaped it by forging it with a charcoal fire in our grill, using a railroad tie-ish board we have from when we redid a retaining wall as an anvil.
Boards are shitty anvils.
But I got it done anyway and today I ground it down some. Also I cut out a guard a little while ago.
Its 22 gauge steel so it's a little flimsy(apparently I want like 18) but I can make it work. I cut it out with tin snips and bent it with my hands an a little bit of hammering.
22 gauge is pretty thin, so you might actually be able to heat that pretty hot on a smaller fire. Worth considering, for harder to do bends. Then again, heating it will cause it to shrink, so maybe just use pliars and a hammer like you're doing is good enough.
How do you intend to attach the guard? What is your plan for the grip? As I have mentioned, I like wire wraps, which can be supplemented with other wraps afterwords if needed. You would want either copper, aluminum or galvanized steel wire for that, and relatively thick is better, though you will need pliars to get a tight wrap.
Good work!
I was going to try to temper and quench it(with an admittedly absurd element of lottery, given my experience) but it's been rainy and I'm vey impatient.
I have actually worked with it cold quite a lot. When I got it it was extremely bent and I hammered it straight while it was still cold.
Evenly heating by itself will be hard enough without the added challenge of trying not to burn down a nice suburban neighborhood while tossing a red hot sword into a bucket of oil.
I have quenched in mixed oil, mostly used motor oil, which seemed to not be a terrible fit. Might add carbon to the outside, but not very much I would wager, unless you are quenching it many, many times in that stuff.
Hardening temperature for most steel is decidedly red, you might want to find a good way to block sunlight, or do your hardening at night. Cherry red when its pitch black out is much cooler for hardening purposes than cherry red in bright light! Its hard to get things hot enough evenly without a pretty big, controlled heat source, but kudos for giving it a shot, I hope it works out well! Hardening is much easier than tempering, once you have a suitable heat source... I have heard of people using ovens and the like, to get the right temperature, but the coolest way I have heard for swords was to really heat up another bar of iron, then use THAT as the heat source, since the steel only needs to get up to probably 300 farenheit, you can use this trick to get differential hardening, which is one of the secrets to a really, really good sword. If the whole blade is as hard as you want the edge to be, it'll be brittle, but if you can keep the bulk of the sword tough and a bit springy while making the cutting edge only lightly tempered, it will be better. Final point, people sometimes do repeated temperings to refine the grains of steel. The key is to not overheat obviously, as getting past the dark yellow stage for the edge of the blade is likely to be too soft for a sword (probably just fine for an axe though).
Wood can be nice, I have put a wood grip on a machete I bought ages ago. It came with a guarded single hand only grip, which worked, but wasn't as versatile as I wanted, so I put a nice, long two-handed grip on it. It's a biggish machete, and using it with both hands can get some power behind it. Wish the blade held a better edge maybe, but it's stainless, so you get the joy of 'hard to sharpen' mixed with 'does not hold an edge well'. Go figure!
The way I put the handle on was to cut a slot (the handle is much longer than tang in this case) in a piece of good hardwood, the drill holes matching the machete's holes, and I used brads to attatch it. A brad is what people most often use to attatch shovels to their handles... never came close to failing, and used no glue. It was seasoned hardwood though. If you have a broken shovel or other handle handy, that wood is probably pretty good for what you need. If not, I would suggest finding a dry piece of hardwood, and carving something. I would also wrap it with leather after putting a wood handle on, or for a utility tool, I use athletic tape, which offers very good grip, and looks pretty badass.
The grip is a little thick than I would have liked but I have small hands and any smaller wouldn't really fit on the tang, or be reliably sturdy. Overall I think it's ok, but I'm sure I'll ruin it completely while tinkering later.
That said I would strongly recommend trying to find a better crucible, I bet if I kept that in much longer it would have failed. But there it is. Once I have a few ingots I plan to cast a crossguard for a friend's wooden claymore, then maybe a hilt for a rapier, but I'd rather have that out of steel. I have very little experience with aluminum so I don't know how it would handle that kind of stress.
General points about aluminum though, regardless of alloy it tends to melt at a low temperature, but it has extremely good heat conductance, so it will generally be pretty easy to melt, provided you're hot enough. It melts well below the temperature of cast iron, so I'd keep an eye open for a suitable cast iron container, that should stand up decently to the heat you need. It will wear, but cast irons will likely wear less than steel for what you're using it for, as it SHOULD resist the heavy oxidation that steel would accrue. IE hot steel rusts before your eyes, but cast iron might tolerate this a bit better, depending on how much sulphur or phosphorus there is, as both will burn up at high heat. Sooo... aim for a cast container designed for high heat. I know of people using steel though, and certainly the right kind of pottery would work best (ceramics are very useful, but VERY easy to break when hot, IE a drop of sweat could cause a crack/explosive failure, so I recommend the cast iron).
One thing to remember, aluminum oxidizes very, very rapidly, so it will form a skin. I don't think you can use an argon environment, but look up deoxidizers. I would guess silicon MIGHT be oxide easier, as it's widely used to deoxidize steel, but then, aluminum is used for that too sometimes, its that prone oxidation.
Assume aluminum won't be very hard or strong compared to steel when you cast it, but if you get good at it, and use decent scrap, you might be impressed.
Regarding the mentioned massive machete, I did make up an elm handle, and indeed, it did not break. I heated the bejeesus out of it with a heat gun, and sealed/filled cracks with hot glue, so it should be pretty stable. The handle worked well when I used it, but the steel needs significant stiffening... so I continue to cold work it whenever I have the chance.
I am forging a knife as a gift atm, but my fire is clearly not hot enough for drawing out steel, so this has been insanely laborious, as I started with a scrap piece of Grade 8 steel that was pretty short and thick, and am drawing it out to about 5 times it's length. Almost done drawing it out though, which is pretty amazing. I use a 4lb hammer, and am pounding about as hard as I can, often with the cross-pein, rather than the flat hammer face, and I still make small dents only. I'm barely getting the darn thing red hot! I am glad it didn't fail/ crack yet, but I think I'll heat it with a torch and work it very hot for a bit near the end, but the extra stress, if it doesn't actually break it, will make the final knife better. It might end up a tad brittle, but its not going to be long, more of a short tactical blade. Shouldn't be an issue, it being too brittle, as you won't be swinging it like a sword/machete.
Anyway it seems I was able to push through that mental barrier and deal with it anyway. Like I said I'm hoping to collect some soda cans and try again soon. I'm always on the lookout for a permanent crucible as well. Im up for trying to cast a rapier crossguard, but I think aluminum will be pretty hit and miss. Everything is a learning experience, I guess.
If aluminum doesn't turn out id like to try something like this:
It's probably a littel ambitious, but some of the other things he's done with this microwave parts are just spectacular. I don't know if I'll be able to live without trying the arc welder. (
[/spoiler]
This is ok. It's a lot prettier and lighter(16ga) but the stainless steel wire, which I expected to be rather hard, I'd dead soft. I think. I might have to switch to aluminum, though it's much more expensive. But these rings are barely losing together. Also these rings are two small. This new one took almost three times as much time as it did to make the. 14ga bracelet.
Here's the 14 gauge:
Big annoyance for the average person looking at getting a welder though is that pretty much any useful welder that isn't expensive will require a 230v plug, IE not a standard wall plug. If you use an Inverter type welder, you can definately find machines that can do what you are talking about while only using a 120v plug, but these are more expensive, as the tech isn't as old. Transformers have been used since arc welding started out, but transformers for SMAW haven't gotten much better for 50 or 60 years really. Hence them being really cheap if you're lucky!
I suppose you'd want to use AC for something like this, and you might want to consider preheating stuff with an old fashioned fire before hand, but even a pretty weak arc (40 amps on a carbon arc should arc) will definitely melt steel. If you can run +100 amps, it will melt pretty quickly if it isn't pretty massive. I have tossed around in my head making a carbon arc furnace, though I haven't done it yet. Perhaps this spring/summer. Carbon arc furnaces are used in modern smelting industry, but they'd be much bigger. On the much, much crazier side, you might look up Atomic Hydrogen Welding... Its very old, and sounds kinda dangerous, but its an interesting process, and pretty hot temperature-wise I hear. Never seen it in action though. In my semi-professional opinion, I'd be worried about getting hydrogen in your metal, which causes sudden failures, especially in alloys with higher carbon equivalence... IE stronger alloys of iron.
Stainless steel is as a rule both harder and stronger than almost any carbon steel... I wonder what alloy you're dealing with. Quick question, is it magnetic? If it isn't magnetic, that'd be Austenitic stainless, which is not typically as hard alloys lower in nickel... but it should still be much harder than regular steel. You need considerably more force to bend stainless sheeting for example. Well, I know stainless usually has more of a mixed nature for hardness, IE has very hard parts of its microstructure with soft parts, which is why stainless is not popular for stuff like woodworking blades; its harder to sharpen, yet doesn't hold an edge. Works well for machetes and the like though, where holding a true razor edge isn't important, or for disposable razors, where you won't resharpen.