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Ed Caffrey's Workshop Talk to Ed Caffrey ... The Montana Bladesmith! Tips, tricks and more from an ABS Mastersmith.

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Old 09-16-2013, 08:34 AM
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Getting back into the shop...some new mosaic

Been feeling a little better the last few days, and since I've not been at the forge in a while....I just couldn't stand it anymore. After chatting with Bing on Saturday morning, I had an idea........

I built a "can".....4"x4"x6".....plugged one end with a piece of 3/8" place, laid out a stack of 1080 & 15N20 diagonally. Filled the remaining space in with 1/4" W1 rods, then took up all the air space with 1095 powder, to which I added 10% nickel powder.





After about 45mins in the forge, this was how far I got..... 3"x3"x16".....then the forge lining failed on me. NUTS! Thankfully I had another welding forge ready to go that I spent the rest of the afternoon putting in place and setting up.





Got the replacement forge going, and the heat that I'm used to......




Worked the billet down just a bit more, let it cool, then because it was so large, I saw cut it in half, just so it would be easier to handle.



Next step is to forge the two halves down to about 1 1/2" square, anneal, and mill off the can, then cut each in half again. That will give me four pieces to decide how to orient and 4-way. Depending on what I come out with, it may go to an 8, or even a 16 way.

More to come.


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Old 09-16-2013, 09:10 AM
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Ed, couple of questions. 1) How do you get the powdered steel down between the contents without any air gaps? 2) Can this be done on a smaller scale without a power hammer or hydraulic press? I believe my forge gets to welding temp but have only my hammers and anvil.

Much thanks for the pics. I always thought canned steel like this was really cool, and your pics are great.

Tony Zanussi
Kansas City, MO


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Old 09-16-2013, 09:40 AM
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It's really tough to do without power tools like a power hammer or press. Generally speaking it takes 40-50% reduction to get everything solid on the interior.

Very often it takes about as much time to build the initial can, as it does to forge it out to a usable size. I like using 1095 and/or Nickel powders because the mesh is super fine....about like flour. I simply dump the powder in, then use a hammer to tap on all sides of the can until all the air space is filled (no more powder goes down into the gaps). On this can, I spent about 1/2 hour tapping the sides of the can with a hammer, and adding more powder until everything filled it. Once that was done, I made a "lid" of 3/8" thick place, so it fit INSIDE the can, filled the cracks around the edges with powder, and completely MIG welded it closed. I think it's VERY important to put the lid INSIDE the can, versus "capping" the end. If a can is capped by just laying a piece of plate over the end(s), and MIG welding in place.....the cap very often will pop off during the initial weld.....and all the hot (non-welded) powder just runs out onto the shop floor.


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Old 09-16-2013, 10:22 AM
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That's awesome Ed!
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Old 09-16-2013, 10:49 AM
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Great idea! Looks fantastic!


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Old 09-16-2013, 06:38 PM
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Good to see you getting back into what you enjoy Ed!!


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Old 09-16-2013, 07:38 PM
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Ed,
Watching with great interest!

What was the wall thickness of the can?

What was the final dimensions before you milled off the can?

Regards,

Dennis Paish

Last edited by Dennis Paish; 09-16-2013 at 07:41 PM.
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Old 09-16-2013, 08:08 PM
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Ok, thanks Ed! Looking forward to some more pics.

Tony Z


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Old 09-17-2013, 06:35 AM
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Ed, Looking good so far. We need more.

Bing


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Old 09-17-2013, 11:54 AM
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Next steps

Forged the billet down to 1 1/2" sqaure. Ended up with about 30" of material. Sawed it in half, then sawed both those pieces in half...



So now I have 4 equal pieces of 1 1/2" sqaure material....



A quick clean-up of the ends with a 220 belt and an etch so I can orient everything....



The cool thing about Mosaic is that simply by rotating the pieces before welding, you change the end pattern.....



The "trick" to getting what you want is being able to visualize in your mind how the pattern will look after welding and accordion cutting/folding....you might be surprised at just how different a pattern will look from where it is now.....to what the end product will look like.

Finally, I facemill off the mating faces of each piece.....then it's just a matter of placing them together and forge welding. It can be wet welded, dry welded...or whatever you'd like...each method will have an effect on the finished product.



More to come!


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Old 09-17-2013, 12:54 PM
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I'm on the edge of my seat Ed.

Austin


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Old 09-23-2013, 07:37 AM
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Got some more done on the "can" yesterday after church.

I got so involved in what I was doing, I didn't take an many pics as I intended to, but here goes.....

Here's the 4-way, after milling off the mating faces. (4 pieces of 1 1/2" square)



After welding the 4-way, I forged down part of the billet to 1 1/4" square and because things were getting too long to handle, cut off 10" and got it into the annealing tub (that's the part I forgot to photo!)

The other portion of the billet was forged down to 1 1/4" X 12" and 1 1/2" X 11" That means from the initial 4x4x6" can, I'll have 33" of mosaic to accordion cut/fold.





It's all in the annealing tub right now, so next steps will be to clean up each piece, layout the accordions, and spend half a day at the bandsaw!

More to come!


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Old 09-23-2013, 09:21 PM
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Glad to see you back at it Ed! I can't wait to see the final billet.
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Old 09-24-2013, 05:52 PM
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Whew! Spent the whole day in the forging shop today. Got an update for everyone on the can project....

After the 4-way was welded up, I cut it into managable sized pieces, 1 1/4" and 1 1/2"....ended up with a total of 2 pieces of each size, and placed them in the annealing tub....took nearly two days for them to cool enough to be handled.

After a quick grind with 220, here's what came out....



After face milling off all 4 sides of each piece.......



Now it's time to lay out the accordion cuts.......

The important part to this step is to use a "guide".....you want the "hinges" to be the same thickness as the rest of the billet (the black lines going lengthwise), otherwise you run a real risk of the billet tearing when it's forged open.



After everything was laid out, it was about an hour of sitting on the bansaw, cutting the "triangles" out......



What I didn't get a picture of was rounding off all the corners, and the bottoms of the "V" cuts.

Rather then take a bunch of still photos....I had a friend in the shop today....so here's a video of open the acordion cut, and finishing out the billet for annealing.




Generally at this point, I will forge out the blade(s) I want from the billet, but these are already sold, and will be sent out once they are cleaned up and a light etch applied.


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Last edited by Ed Caffrey; 09-25-2013 at 09:14 AM.
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Old 09-24-2013, 06:52 PM
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ed..... do you use the triangles too?
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