Atlas Mini and welding

DanF

DanF

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Apr 17, 2017
Messages
1,411
Well, I know Charles says it can be done, but I had to see for myself (not doubting Charles, but sometimes you just gotta try something new, you know?), so I had some short cutoffs in the scrap bucket and decided to see what this diminutive little forge could do.
I took three pieces of .120 15n20 and two pieces of 1084, all of them 1" x 4", welded the edges and stuck them in the forge. FORGE welded them together, started drawing them out to 5/8"x5/8", rounded the corners and put a couple twists on them. Five minutes in FeCl and now I can say, "yeah, it forges and here's the proof."
I know there are grind lines in there, this was just some experimentation with some scraps. Loving this little forge more and more. Bigger would be better, but man it SIPS! Oh, I think I just fell down a rabbit hole with pattern welding, I really need a power hammer for sure now.
IMG_20171120_153902.jpg IMG_20171120_153926.jpg
 
Nice, I’ve been trying, but I’m having a little trouble getting my billets to stick right. I just need to spend more time trying.
 
You have to be careful when trying to stick damascus. A lot of people crank the forge to 11 and try welding it. The flux needs to stay liquid, if your flux is drying out in the forge then your way to hot. Also use gentle taps when setting the welds.
 
Sure wish I was about a zillion years younger. Well maybe even just 15. I certainly would get me one of those !
Frank
 
JTknives said:
You have to be careful when trying to stick damascus. A lot of people crank the forge to 11 and try welding it. The flux needs to stay liquid, if your flux is drying out in the forge then your way to hot. Also use gentle taps when setting the welds.
Click to expand...

If dry welding, without flux, do you need to worry as much about the heat being too high?
 
Still can be an issue, the melting temp of our carbon steels is around 2500°. That is easily reachable with a properly built forge. The more carbon in the steel the lower the melting temp. I discovered this problem out by mistake. I allways use to run my little forge wide open and I noticed the floor building up with this super hard black stuff. I thought it was flux and scale and kept going at it. Months later I was forging a big damascus billet and had it welded up and was not using any flux. Got it super hot for the press. I pulled it out and swung it down and liquid ran off and hit the floor. There was no flux on that billet as it was dry welded but it came out as wet as if it had. I run my forges real rich to keep the scale down which was also keeping the steel liquid. After this I grabbed an extra 8ga thermal couple and plugged it into a pid and stuck the end in the door. The number quickly climbed to 2500° and kept going. I think the pid stopped reading at 2700-2800° And alarmed out. So go easy on the gas, you don't need as much as you might think.
 
Grinding not quite half done but it's starting to look like a knife so I gave it a dip to see how it was going to look.
I know, in the great scheme of pattern welding, it's not special, but I'm tickled with the result.IMG_20171203_174304.jpg IMG_20171203_174459.jpg
 
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