Forge welding, truly some man made horrors beyond comprehension or a brilliant lightning bolt of inspired success. Sometimes, there's no middle ground :)
For some strange reason & unknown reason I hadn’t seen your videos in a very long time, then for another unknown but awesome reason you were back! I’m so glad, because even with your accent you’re easy to understand and learn from. I’m a beginner with a brain injury. I had 30 years of metal working/ fabrication & welding experience as my career before my incident that caused my injuries. Thank you I’m learning a lot, just have to watch again & again & again …
Thank you! I used to have a terrible stutter and overcame it through many years of hard work, so it led to me speaking the way I do now. I'm glad to hear it is clear!
You rock at an insane level man! I love your videos. This one was incredibly interesting too. I don't understand how on Earth it didn't get 100 times more views. Thank you VERY MUCH for everything. I love your spirit too. Cheers from France
Great info Alex. I'd add one piece of information to it and that is when steel reaches a certain a heat it stops forming scale. This is the reason people are able to forgeweld without flux. A nifty experiment that anyone can do at home with their forge is to stick a piece of steel in it and heat it up just about as hot as your forge will allow and then pull your steel out and really pay attention to the surface of it and you will see your steel looks nice and clean and then as it cools back under that temperature in which scale can form you will see scale forming on your steel. When forge welding without the use of flux you really want to be quick with setting your forge welds so that you do the most amount of work before oxidation sets in and tries to bugger up your weld. Just my 2 cents that I thought might be helpful. Happy hammering 🔨 🔥 💧 🗡
I'm not entirely sure you're correct there. The reason people can forge weld without flux is by creating a fuel-rich atmosphere, so there isn't enough oxygen present in the forge chamber to create the oxidation of the steel.
I have struggled with forge welding, I think my forge is not getting hot enough. I have a gameco gas burner thats can get up to forging heat yet I think the volume in my forge is to large and I am not sure how to set up the gas bottle flow valve thingy, and the venturi adjuster so I get dragons breath flame. ( a good tip I will start looking for). I also have an outside forge that makes temps hard to see. I have made some forge welds for a wood splitting froe, and some cable in a coke forge. perhaps a vid on setting up a gas forge would be good. cheers, love the clarity in explaination.
I do have a video on building your first gas forge! I'll link it below. But perhaps a short explainer video on forge design might be in order! ua-cam.com/video/lG-TXdDdx8U/v-deo.html
So if you have scale in between two pieces of steel then should you put flux in between the two pieces of steel? Because most the time I just see people putting it on the side. And my question always becomes how does the flux on the side make the scale in the middle melt
Flux, when liquified, works on a capillary action! It literally will seep down inside thin cracks, a bit like WD40 can do. When people sprinkle it on the side of a billet, it melts, seeps down inside the microscopic spaces between layers, and then is squeezed out again during the billet setting process, taking the dissolved forge scale with it!
If you're familiar with brazing, there's an effect similar to flux ingress that happens with liquid metals called 'capillary action' and I'm not entirely sure if its exactly that particular effect or not- however, the theory is that the flux will move in between surfaces if its hot enough due to its innate liquid properties of the flux in between two hot surfaces. Now the trick is essentially, you want to get the two surfaces closer together, to draw in the liquid further- counter intuitive as that may seem! The narrower the distance between them allows the liquid a further distance, so we're not talking volumes of liquid but coverage of it and once the metal is 'wet' enough (high enough temp to have a semi-liquid or very close to liquid state) it sucks the flux in as its attracted to the same material state. So essentially think of a drop of water on a dry bench top, it'll just sit there with surface tension holding it as a drop of water you can see Now, if I wiped down the bench top with a wet rag to clean it, then placed a similar sized drop of water back on it- surface tension is turned into attraction (to the liquids) and the droplet would flow into the wet surface of the bench. I hope that makes some sense, sorry if it doesn't
@@ValhallaIronworks ohhh wow I didn’t realize flux could work in such a thin place that’s fascinating. I’ve been listening to the forecast and I’m only on ep 31. It’s been amazing to see you guys getting more comfortable with each other and the rhythm of a podcast.
I just spoke on the bare metal oxidation bit on my livestream. It was a great piece on Steve Mold’s channel that inspired me to talk about it. Happenstance or did you also get inspired by Steve Mold?
Successful forge welds always invoke a happy dance. 👏👏👏
I love how when you said "in the vacuum of space" I was just thinking of the steels being like the planets. Great video man
I enjoy listening to your explanations. They make sense. Thanks
Glad you like them!
Awesome work Alex. It's great to have such passionate people getting down to the nitty gritty of things. Love it.
Thanks mate!
Forge welding, truly some man made horrors beyond comprehension or a brilliant lightning bolt of inspired success.
Sometimes, there's no middle ground :)
For some strange reason & unknown reason I hadn’t seen your videos in a very long time, then for another unknown but awesome reason you were back! I’m so glad, because even with your accent you’re easy to understand and learn from. I’m a beginner with a brain injury. I had 30 years of metal working/ fabrication & welding experience as my career before my incident that caused my injuries. Thank you I’m learning a lot, just have to watch again & again & again …
Thank you! I used to have a terrible stutter and overcame it through many years of hard work, so it led to me speaking the way I do now. I'm glad to hear it is clear!
Thanks for this. I think this may well be the best explanation of why you only tap for the first two or three heats, not bash the bejabbers out of it.
You rock at an insane level man! I love your videos. This one was incredibly interesting too. I don't understand how on Earth it didn't get 100 times more views. Thank you VERY MUCH for everything. I love your spirit too. Cheers from France
Merci!
You give really great explanations! Thank you for all you share with us.
Forge welding just seems to happen, when the planets are in perfect alignment and the forge gods are smiling down on you! Most times however, grrrrrr!
Well explained. Great video. Hammer on
I always pick up great info from you. Thanks as always!
My pleasure!
Such an awesome video, thank you, it was super super helpful!!
Glad it was helpful!
Great info Alex. I'd add one piece of information to it and that is when steel reaches a certain a heat it stops forming scale. This is the reason people are able to forgeweld without flux. A nifty experiment that anyone can do at home with their forge is to stick a piece of steel in it and heat it up just about as hot as your forge will allow and then pull your steel out and really pay attention to the surface of it and you will see your steel looks nice and clean and then as it cools back under that temperature in which scale can form you will see scale forming on your steel. When forge welding without the use of flux you really want to be quick with setting your forge welds so that you do the most amount of work before oxidation sets in and tries to bugger up your weld. Just my 2 cents that I thought might be helpful. Happy hammering 🔨 🔥 💧 🗡
I'm not entirely sure you're correct there. The reason people can forge weld without flux is by creating a fuel-rich atmosphere, so there isn't enough oxygen present in the forge chamber to create the oxidation of the steel.
I haven't even been able to forge weld two gage blocks , but I can get a coal forge going first time every time :')
haha you'll get there! Practice makes perfect!
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I have struggled with forge welding, I think my forge is not getting hot enough. I have a gameco gas burner thats can get up to forging heat yet I think the volume in my forge is to large and I am not sure how to set up the gas bottle flow valve thingy, and the venturi adjuster so I get dragons breath flame. ( a good tip I will start looking for). I also have an outside forge that makes temps hard to see. I have made some forge welds for a wood splitting froe, and some cable in a coke forge. perhaps a vid on setting up a gas forge would be good. cheers, love the clarity in explaination.
I do have a video on building your first gas forge! I'll link it below. But perhaps a short explainer video on forge design might be in order!
ua-cam.com/video/lG-TXdDdx8U/v-deo.html
So if you have scale in between two pieces of steel then should you put flux in between the two pieces of steel? Because most the time I just see people putting it on the side. And my question always becomes how does the flux on the side make the scale in the middle melt
I believe the theory is that it will seep in and melt the scale as it goes. Not sure how metallurgically sound that theory is though.
Flux, when liquified, works on a capillary action! It literally will seep down inside thin cracks, a bit like WD40 can do. When people sprinkle it on the side of a billet, it melts, seeps down inside the microscopic spaces between layers, and then is squeezed out again during the billet setting process, taking the dissolved forge scale with it!
If you're familiar with brazing, there's an effect similar to flux ingress that happens with liquid metals called 'capillary action' and I'm not entirely sure if its exactly that particular effect or not- however, the theory is that the flux will move in between surfaces if its hot enough due to its innate liquid properties of the flux in between two hot surfaces.
Now the trick is essentially, you want to get the two surfaces closer together, to draw in the liquid further- counter intuitive as that may seem! The narrower the distance between them allows the liquid a further distance, so we're not talking volumes of liquid but coverage of it and once the metal is 'wet' enough (high enough temp to have a semi-liquid or very close to liquid state) it sucks the flux in as its attracted to the same material state.
So essentially think of a drop of water on a dry bench top, it'll just sit there with surface tension holding it as a drop of water you can see
Now, if I wiped down the bench top with a wet rag to clean it, then placed a similar sized drop of water back on it- surface tension is turned into attraction (to the liquids) and the droplet would flow into the wet surface of the bench.
I hope that makes some sense, sorry if it doesn't
@@ValhallaIronworks ohhh wow I didn’t realize flux could work in such a thin place that’s fascinating. I’ve been listening to the forecast and I’m only on ep 31. It’s been amazing to see you guys getting more comfortable with each other and the rhythm of a podcast.
@@krissteel4074 yeah this does thank you so much!!
I just spoke on the bare metal oxidation bit on my livestream. It was a great piece on Steve Mold’s channel that inspired me to talk about it. Happenstance or did you also get inspired by Steve Mold?
I'll have to check him out!
I think I misspelled his name. I think it’s Mould and that it was the bit about self-healing polymers.
AkShUlLy
😂😂😂