Blacksmithing - Forge Welding With Sand As Flux
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2016
- It has been brought up many times and has been a question of mine for a while... How does sand work as a flux?... In this video I attempt forge welding with sand as a flux and then as a control I try it again with no flux
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I watched as you did your lamination and forge welding of the bandsaw blades. I saw a couple of things you could have and should have done differently. You were trying to treat your sand as a standard dry flux that melts on contact. Sand does not melt at the same temperature as borax. The purpose of flux is to prevent and minimize oxidation of the steel as it is heated. The second purpose of using a flux, is to keep, or to help clean the metal prior to welding.
Regarding your attempts to use sand as a standard flux, as you know know, it cannot be actually used in the same manner as a standard forge weld flux because it doesn't melt and join to the metal during the reheat. Because you were "Pouring the sand" the bulk of it tended to just fall away and slide off, even at the higher temperature. The proper way and correct approach to using sand as a flux, is to take your heated steel and push it directly into the sand and immerse it. Enough sand will stick to the steel. While in the sand, steam is released as the sand contacts the steel. This property aids the forging process because it pushes the air away from the metal so that only sand and steel remain. It only takes a couple of seconds to push the steel into the sand in order to acquire enough for the forge weld.
Finally, there is the issue of the sand. You were using a play sand, a sand that was carefully washed and cleaned. It isn't so much as how well the sand has been cleaned, as it is, the contents of the sand. A successful sand weld should contain a balance of different minerals for a successful forge weld. One of the best sands to use, is a white "Silica Sand" that has trace amounts of "Black Sand," which is actually ironite particles with trace amounts of hematite minerals, a type of iron ore. The silica sand cleans the metal and minimizes further oxidation when hot steel is emersed into the sand for welding. The trace black sands and hematite serves to aid with the welding process and actually becomes part of the steel itself. Certain types of silica sand also contains trace amounts of calcite deposits, a type of calcium, which is also a good insulator and aids in minimizing oxidation in steel when forge welding.
A word of caution. Too much black sand, and too much hematite will make your steel hard and brittle. The deserts of Egypt, the middle east and North Africa have sands, sand dunes and sand drifts with high amounts of silica, making it ideal to use in forge welding. Incidentally, silica is the mineral that makes clear glass possible and is largely used in glass production. Interesting video, I enjoyed watching you experiment...
Thank you A LOT
Sure sounds like you know what you're talking about, its refreshing to see something like this on YT of all places
So you could probably use pulverized glass as flux
@@jizburg well perhaps. But the melting point of glass is too low and might probably burn off long before welding heat is achieved. Glass is also an impurity that can ruin the quality of steel, especially if it is going to be a cutting edged device like a knife or ax. You are better off using something that offers better cleaning and minimizes oxidation of the steel as much as possible.
Metal dust such as iron, or steel shavings and filings are good choices. Wood ash offers excellent protection against oxidation, however will also require a longer soak and heat time to achieve a weld. Welding mediums such as dry flux compounds are your best option. Pure Borax used in detergents is an excellent choice. You can also by iron sand, iron powder and metal shavings to use.
Or, if you are a prospector, save your black sand and use it as a flux. It's mostly iron deposits that includes hematite and magnetite... Hematite is actually an iron infused glass that makes excellent jewelry. But large deposits of hematite and magnetite or ironite can be found in the bottoms of gold matrix during prospecting. They could potentially provide an excellent medium for a fluxing compound in forge welds. Good luck.
I agree. He needs much more pure silica and also it should be preheated. If it cools down the metal it's going to create pockets in the metal and make the heating/cooling uneven in the crystalline structure of the metal.
that is the fastest forge welding ive ever seen. this guy has access to far stronger coffee than i do.
Love your scientific rigor with your conclusion. You don't say 'sand good, no flux bad'. You say "I was not able to weld without sand". I appreciate that specificity.
romans 16 billion years ago. love the historical accuracy in this video.
just wanted to say thank you for these videos. Even as someone who knows nothing about blacksmithing it's really nice to see something that isn't directly informative in the sense that you aren't telling us things, you don't claim to know things, and you don't claim to even have researched things, but you're just showing your journey in learning your skill. It's much more rewarding as a viewer to only get the message "here's what I did, go do whatever you want" rather than "im gonna break common misconceptions" or "here's what you need to do" which is so commonly the attitude.
Thank you!
my uncle use sand for 50 years,he use pork fat and fine sand to make damascus razors.
emilian gaman that’s impressive
I love this channel, its great that you experiment rather than just take someones blog or whatever as fact
I remember when you first started. You've come a long ways.
It's very simple and I talked about mulitiple times.
The higher the amount of carbon, the lower the melting point. With higher carbon steels, beyond 1045 steels the melting point is low enough that a forge weld without flux is (often) too hot. In order to get the molten scale, which I show in various videos the temperature has to be above 1369C - 2496F. Steels above 1045 steel pretty much can't take it that amount of heat.
It will crack, the heat is too close to the melting point of the steel.
1045 can take the heat reasonable well and steels below too. Mild steels take it just fine and the lower the carbon, the more you got to pure iron or wrought iron, the better the material can take a weld without flux because the melting point of the material is sufficiently high enough to take the heat.
Thanks for the info, Joey. That is very good to know for us new guys.
Excellent information Joey. Very helpful.
I've done several billets without flux, just an oxygen barrier, i.e. diesel fuel soak. The fuel burns off and leaves a carbon residue. It works, but I prefer using flux as it gives me a little more time and a visual indicator. I guess you could call the diesel fuel a type of flux. The downside to using diesel is that to cut and fold you have to wait until the billet has cooled before dunking again or you get a fire, so I just flux and go.
There is something very calming watching your videos lol
ikr I think its his voice its very soothing
Its like Bob Ross painting on pbs
Alan Wasson but with more swearing and less pretending.
look up the youtube channel called primitive technology. very informative, sans dialogue.
Bryan Neeley yes
Hello Chandler. My grandfather would use sand sometimes. It has to be very clean. He used either white sand or sand that came from the creek nearby. If it came out of the creek he made me rinse it several times.
I'm addicted to your videos Chandler... its another great experiment!
Great stuff BROTHER! As a newbie I find your videos full of EXCELLENT and HELPFUL information.
TY
Looks like it works to me. Definitely makes sense that a flux would be useful for forge welding, something to dissolve the oxide scale and flow out of the way when being worked so the fresh metal faces can
I Imagine sand would have been the flux of choice before better materials became readily available.
I just now came across your video here Chandler. Very interesting to say the least. Right now I am very new to blacksmithing and I've not yet tried forge welding. I wasn't aware that you even could weld using sand as a flux. Good video.
I love watching your experiments.. :)
There's a new scale which Chandler demonstrates very well, that is hb/s. Hammer blows / second. I've never seen anyone, not even farriers with those dinky little hammers, swing as fast as Mr. Dickinson. Way to go Chandler! Keep forging!
Sand is mainly used in the hot fire of a crucible to draw impurities away from the metal. If you use floor sweepings again in a crucible to recover the lost metal, sand and a chunk of glass would be the way to go. Your resultant bloom would be more pure as opposed just the floor droppings. A pure fine silicate sand is the best for such applications. Good work!
To forge-weld using sand as flux requires repeated bilateral compression (hammer or press) intervaled by multiple twist compressions. That's what moves the inner parts of the Ingot to the outside edges and outer surfaces. The twisting expels molten sand mass (with other non-ferrous material) and prevents it from being trapped within pockets of ferrous mass. (The twisting is like wringing water from a wet towell)
And you are right. Your steel must be white hot.
I love your channel. you've taught me a few things.
Chandler, I am an inspired beginner. I watch your videos, and wanted to say that I am very excited to start this trade/ hobbie. You have allot of knowledge and I caint wait to see more vids. I will post some videos on my creations soon. and will give you a shout out as well. thanks brother.
This was actually really interesting! Now I know. Great video!
Thank you, this is a wonderful and very useful experience👍💌
I kind of like the fact that you approach these things with a bit of childlike curiosity. The experts might look at this and immediately say, "Oh, that would never work." and they may be right. But it's great that you're willing to take the time and just give it a go just to see what happens. You're motivated by a simple sense of discovery, not by merely the urge to achieve a successful forge weld. Not a bad way to approach life.
Hey, Chandler
this is not video related other than forge welding, And I would like to see you try your hand at a canister damascus, I can't recall ever seeing it done old school so to speak.I like your videos and your ability to move forward no matter what happens. keep the videos coming. They are not only informative but also a joy to watch.so all I can say is CANISTER DAMASCUS, CANISTER DAMASCUS, CANISTER DAMASCUS. ..LET'S SEE IT DONE OLD SCHOOL. .......
I enjoy your videos. You try things I might very well do myself! I really don't care for the guys who say they know what their doing, but screw it up and start back tracking!!!!. Keep hammering Chandler!!! Good job!
totally found your channel by accident and really find it brilliIant and informative, best channel full stop. I'm hoping to get my own forge set up (from home) and working out floor set up to use. beig in UK I can't get rail spike for love nor money and really like your knives you make, when watching you make your various knives I thought you could make a cool alien xenomorph knife (hr gieger style) out of the shape, think that would rock and sell well 😊😊😊😊😊😊 keep up the brilliant work brightens my day
The Sure Weld flux is a mix of Anti-Borax & Ez Weld. Ez weld is 10th Boric acid, 1/2 Iron oxides, 10th Silicon Dioxide aka Sand and 1/3rd steel filings. Anti Borax is mainly Boric acid & Borax mixed.
Hello ofrom Australia!
very cool man love your videos definitely something I plan to get into. Keep the videos coming and stop putting your work down!
That was fascinating, great video Chandler.
Jayneflakes u V 9
I always enjoy watching your videos and have recently built a small forge and purchased an anvil and some other tools to start learning more on my own. I always understood the reason for flux in any weld is to create an o2 barrier and a cleaner that will absorb impurity's in the metals into a slag that can be removed post weld. One would assume that flux would thereby be needed in every weld in one form or another to insure a clean weld...for example using argon gas vrs flux core wire to weld with...two types of what are in affect the same thing. One more expensive but much cleaner to use with far less clean up.
I dont know I could be way off base here...
I Look forward to more videos!
from my research i found some evedence that quartz sand was used in the past. but no every smith had the luxury of quarts sand. but its shoud do better than normal sand you find everyware.
i have to say that i like your video and showed it to my prof at my uni. your video become class material.
btw. i study mechanical engineering and as second historical engineering in germany.
Good video Chandler!
If you are gonna use sand I think sand with a higher silicon content would be better, like glass making sand. According to the wiki page for forge welding a high silica sand was originally used as flux. Hope that helps.
Interesting vid didn't know sand would help
Cool video.
Good old Peter Wright. Gotta love them.
Mustad Sure-Weld is: (loosely copied from their site) a mixture of borax and a "welding compound" with little metal filings... The 90 yr old blacksmith that used to come see me when I was demonstrating 20 yrs ago, told me he made his own using: borax, sand and iron filings.
I like it! My suggestion is: hammer one side, then flip and hammer the other side, at least on the welding heat.
Loved the video, just began to study blacksmithing. A great beginners book I found is titled, " Forge-Practice and Heat Treatment of Steel", copyright 1919. Author: John Lord Bacon. (pdf available online for download - fair use - copyright has expired)
It's has a decent chapter on welding. On page 21, regarding flux, it states flux should be applied when the work is yellow in color, and all pieces to be welded should be fluxed (it appears it's talking mostly about harder steels (higher carbon).
The fluxes listed are sand, borax, and the author specifically states that a flu made from one part 'Sal Ammoniac' to four parts borax is the best.
While I haven't tested and am still a noob, I do trust the words of a 'real' blacksmith that has probably been dead for 75 years; keeping in mind this book was published 97 years ago..... I'm reading the 1919 Third Edition...
form what iv read sand needs a higher temperature to be used as flux compared to borax, iv recently acquired dry silver sand (used in model making) to try as a flux but this vid was helpful thanks
Great demonstration Chandler! Next experiment...try using a clay slurry. I purified some clay that I dug up in my backyard (looked up info online for purifying it but it's very simple). Haven't tried forge welding with it yet.
I love this 💖
Good experiment, I've always had good experience with borax however I've done a few with no flux that turned out fine. I'll stick to borax until I find something as cheap that works better. The only thing I bring home from the beach is Stripers!
thanks, food for thought
That was very gratifying. As a person describable as "not a craftsman", I've often wondered what flux was for. Now I know. It's a medium for filling in cavities, thus insuring a complete, and therefore strong, weld. Thank you.
thanks for trying this :)
I'm thinking sugar sand would be better. I have read that back in the day they would use fine sand. love your videos and experiments Chandler keep em commin!
We have used Glas Powder.
Sand melt at about 1400 Celsius, which is very high temperature.Near to iron melt point.
Chandler, a lot of the old blacksmiths used a mixture of iron filings,sand, and borax..this with borax will probably make it stick nicer too...
Wonder if a more powdery sand would give better results since its a finer grain thus melting easier. As well as dunking it in a bucket versus sprinkling the sand on.
My thoughts too.
Super fine sand and just shove the whole piece in it.
Would probably work great.
Adding some lye to the sand will make it melt at a lower temp, that will probably increase the coverage.
I think it's telling looking at modern welding procedures. All the common ones use some method to protect the weld, either solid flux or inert gas. I say if you get better results with flux, then use it even if you don't need to. The weld would just be that much better, no?
When I served my shoeing apprenticeship at Fort Riley Kansas in 1966 the Cavalry specified "White sand from the Kaw river". Not a new idea..
I have heard that a long time ago you could use crushed brown glass beer bottles for flux, the guy I was talking to said that modern brown glass was different and didn't work as well for some reason.
can also use crushed up bottles. I hear that the green bottles work better.
i use quarz sand a lot when forge welding , as i cant seem to get flux around my place and the sand cost me 2 bucks for 5 kilos haha
You can't get Twenty Mule Team Borax???? That has been flux of choice for many smiths for many years...
@@ericsprado4631 I don't now where he/she is from, but here in Germany you can't get that stuff. Not this brand and not from any other brand. It has some kind of hazardous warning I think. You can get it from the pharmacy, but it'll cost you a fortune
where I live,
buying borax is illegal
and this makes me very happy seeing that sand is an option
You need either a power hammer, or a couple other people to swing sledgehammers to forge weld that together right. The borax at the store works, there is some better boraxs for that job.
High silica sand would improve your results a bit, also having a bucket of sand and shoving the piece down in the sand improving coverage would help a bit as well.
This is what I was thinking too. Play sand is gonna be full of impurities. If there's any sandstone outcroppings near you, that might be a good source. We have shitloads of silica sandstone in central and southern Minnesota.
Although if good sand was obtainable I bet grinding the sand(crushed sand) to a very fine powder would work much better than just straight sand by itself.
Nope. Straight clean river sand works just great....
Actually just plain clean sand works fine.when I served my apprenticeship in the sixties(yes I'm old man) in Kansas we used sand from the Kaw River..
The part I think would be coolest to discover is that the fact that sand, if heated to a high enough temperature and with enough pressure, will become diamonds. Now I'm no scientist or geologist but that would be cool to find when forge welding with sand
No it won't...
Wait but sand is mostly silica and diamond is carbon, I am really confused here
+Virtual Acorn that's why I said it wouldn't.
Just making sure OP understood
This is interesting. I wonder if finer sand would work better. I also wonder if different mixes of sand/borax would present similarly different results (lets say 25/50/75% concentration borax plus 75/50/25% of sand).
It could be useful if you are working a metal that needs to be hotter than your average mild or O1 to have a flux that stays thicker at higher temperatures with added sand is my takeaway from this. Thanks for sharing Chandler!
Cool video, would have been cool to see how well sand did vs. borax.
Just from your videos I would stick with Borax, much easier and less mess when applying. Then it is a known quantity every time you resupply and sand can be any material and any grain size, some or parts of some sand could be worse for welding while Borax works every time and is consistent even if it is years between supplies. Consistency is incredibly important for materials to get consistent quality work done.
So beach sand is going to have a ton of quartz. Quartz melts at something like 1600C or 2900F. So if you are going to use it as flux you would need it to melt and turn in to glass to stop O2. That means getting your work very hot. Much hotter than you would need to with borax.
The difference between flux and sand is the sand only prevents oxidation unlike the flux where it cleans the metal and prevents oxidation.
From looking around on the internet and talking with some smiths who have been at this a while they said that sand can work but is mostly suited for wrought iron since it needs to be a little hotter to weld and that it does not work as well for higher carbon content steels. They also recommended against the 20 mule team borax since it has water added to the borax but instead to use Forge Borax or any other borax without the water added. Supposed to clear impurities better.
dont use the sand from the kitty litter box...the impurities in it will really mess up your forge weld and tends to smell really bad lol
Richard gross thats fullers clay, not sand.
Richard gross 😂🤣😂🤣😂
Try common glass instead of sand. Everyone has an old pickle jar... even a bit baking soda from the kitchen mixed with fine sand. Borax is the gold standard..
You need to start with really hot sand. The sand probably cools it significantly in the process of putting on the metal.
I put this message when i first started the video, have not watched it through. But i know when sand is hot enough it turns to glass, so it seems to me that sand would take a lot hotter temperature than the steel would and therefore wouldn't be a good flux. As i said put this on before i finished the vid. Interested to see how it goes though.
I wounder if you could have a heavy steel bucket or container of already melted sand and you dip the metal in it. I wounder if that would work. if it would then you could use the glass flux with steels that you want to keep certain metal properties from being lost.
Unless cost is the issue I would stay with the Borax as it has less of a chance of leaving undesired particulates in the weld.
I think he's doing it more as a experiment to see how it works.
There are still some of us, who can't get borax....
You can order it online for several sources and have it delivered to your home via USPS.Walmart.com,Amazon.com,Ace Hardware are just a few online sources that sell Borax 20 mule team!
Yeah I realize that I was just making a general statement,and not directing it at CD!If given the choice I would much rather use Borax,sand has too many random things in it IMO to be good flux.I'm not saying it wont work obviously it does but you did see the stuff in CD's weld thats from pebbles rock and debris in the sand.
if you go to the dollar tree they have ant killer powder in a yellow and white plastic bottle. it is 100 percent boric acid. 2 pounds for a dollar...
Pure quartz melts at 1,650 °C, perhaps the sand you had melts at a lower temp. Steel often melts at around 1370 degrees C, while iron is closer to 15 thousand c's.. so basically my point is that I'm dubious that the sand was melting because the metal wasn't.
I agree
I wounder if this is how they got silica steel. Other than that, could you try to see if "waste lime" that very fine grain rock waste they get after crushing up limestone rocks would work. that stuff is really cheap but I am not sure if it would work or not. On another note is the clay type cat litter. I wounder if that would work. Heck could try dried clay dirt from the ground. Sometimes its just messing around with things to get something that somewhat works and then finding out what is in it and what can be made to work better. Thinking also is a liquid clay solution. put on when the steel gets relatively cool about a red to a red orange and possible orange hot could work.
Hey experimentation is the key as that is how they found out about borax working. Also it is what types of steel the stuff used as a flux will work.
Mr.Dickinson would the sand eat your insulation like borax does ? folks out there with small propane forges may benefit from sand if it doesn't know what I mean ? Hey love your channel and thanks for sharing your curiosity / experiments, passion and experiences. I certainly appreciate it .
i used to do canister damascus with no flux, just rods and wire in a piece of cleaned pipe, i'd mig weld a cap on and a rebar handle and it was basically sealed. i also tried using galvanized plate in between tool steel so the zinc acted as flux, that worked nice and gave me some cool shiny spots and probably zinc poisoning but whatever. good old borax seems right tho, or just get a low-melt coated welding rod and throw it in the mix. ive also tried just wrapping the stack with flux-core mig wire. that didnt work. suggestion BUSTED.
Thx that was very interesting. I will try it with sand too. Because you cant buy borax in Germany.
It is classified as toxic, DNA changing and carcinogenic. So you can not buy it as private person.
+Rep-o that's stupid. It's not like we're eating and breathing in the borax
Yes i know that is stupid. But our Government decided in 2008 that Borx is classified as toxic. And now nobody can buy it in Germany.
And so we must used other fluxes.
When i do the smiths, i forge sand and use steel as flux. Didn´t see that one coming, huh?
L
good experiment . but wat happened was you burned all the carbon out of the steel , good video ,
Mr. Chandler would you do a video on all you tongs? If you already did one which video is it?
Try using silica sand. It works well
Wood ash has also been used as flux. Maybe do a comparison?
I have heard that the Vikings used crushed-up seashells for flux.
Seashells are mostly calcium carbonate, with a melting point about 1330 C, higher than borax, but lower than silica, so I could see how that might work, though I think that both silica and calcium carbonate would be better suited to lower-carbon steels; boraxi is probably best for high carbon steel.
How would a mix of building sand work cheap to get hold of is very light and soft may effect?
Here in Jordan they use salt in order to forge Wilding steel, are you aware about that?!
I wonder if the sand used for flux had iron in it? I have only heard of sand being used as flux in combination with iron filings. If the "black sand" containing iron was used, you might get the iron flowing through the weld with the sand scouring it?
legal!
Beach sand has a lot of impurities in it, like shells.
Here's a question. Would it be possible to grind glass (for example beer bottles) into a flux?
back to the old drawing board
I know Rowan Taylor says that he doesn't use flux on mild steel, but when he welds high carbon he uses borax for flux.
I also know from trying it, you don't NEED borax to weld mild steel, but it sure as hell helps!
Rowan Taylor uses a side blast forge which allows him to heat his steel in an oxygen deprived environment just above where the air blast comes in. Bottom blasts basically blow air right onto the steel.
to hold the billets together can you use j.b. weld?
Isso e o que vc ta pondo no metal aquecido?
when iron gets hot, it oxidize. Flux stop oxidization, i.e. prevent oxygen to react with the excited iron atoms.
quick question. I forge welded a billet of 15n20 and 1095 san mai style with 7 layers. Everything did just fine except for one of the layers not laminating to the rest. Can I reheat the billet to forge welding temps and re stick the weld, or should I grind off the layer(s) that didn't stick and start folding the rest into damascus?
I have tried using a solution of borax and water and then soaking the billet in the solution in order to get flux deep into the de-lamination. Then , after taking heat, I flux the fissure, apply more heat to let the flux flow into it, then apply more flux. I'm not sure which worked, the solution soak or the multiple heats with borax, but either way, it gets deep enough to help stick the weld. In the end, my advice is flux early in the heat (before it scales too much) and then several more coats at high heat to allow it to flow down into the layers (keep the billet on its side so the de-lamination is on top and let gravity do its work).
DragonHide94
Awesome, thanks for the info. I'll give that a shot for sure.
try forge welding hardened masonry nails see what kind of knife you can make with those
You should fix the edge of your anvil chandler
My grandfather made iron roses for my grandmother when they were courting. I have one. The one I have is a single rose on a stem with 2 leaves. It is all one piece no welds. Any idea how he did this work of art? He died before I was born so he couldn't teach me.
Chandler my man, play pit sand is not sand it is made from recycled glass , proper sand when it gets wet dry,s out in hard lumps. sand an't sand right.
hey, could you do a video about making tongs