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Heat Treating and Metallurgy Discussion of heat treatment and metallurgy in knife making.

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  #16  
Old 10-13-2004, 03:12 AM
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In the laundry soap section of the grocery store. Do not buy Boraxo. Buy pure 20 mule team borax. Or use the dust in the bottom of your charcoal bag. Keep us informed on your findings. thanks, Roc


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  #17  
Old 10-14-2004, 12:17 PM
chipwit chipwit is offline
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Roc- You can usually get borax at the grocery store in the laundry detergent aisle and it's called 20 Mule Team. With charcoal just crush it pretty good and it should work. Mine was
pretty coarse with some pieces over 1/4" but finer would be better I think. As long as there is a layer deep enough to react the oxygen before it can get to the metal you're fine, but I don't have any data. It helps to put the aluminum on the bottom since it reacts more with oxygen than the copper and there is less oxygen at the bottom.
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  #18  
Old 10-25-2004, 08:29 PM
kyle juedes kyle juedes is offline
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Ok.. I have a bunch of brass and alum.. Will brass and aluminum mix to make bronze? or do you need copper? I can't find much copper besides piping. Are pennies pure copper or are they alloyed?

Thanks,
KJ
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  #19  
Old 10-25-2004, 08:47 PM
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mete mete is offline
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New pennies are a sandwich - copper rich outside , zinc inside. Aluminum bronzes have copper and 5-10% aluminum....Zinc fumes will make you sick immediately, it's things like lead and other heavy metals that are cumulative.
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  #20  
Old 10-25-2004, 09:21 PM
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Copper pipe is great, It has to meet a certain purity standard to be used to run water. I have heard it is the best sourse for pure copper. DON'T USE PENNIES!


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  #21  
Old 10-25-2004, 10:27 PM
kyle juedes kyle juedes is offline
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Ok, thanks alot. I'll use the pipe and aluminum. i'll probably go with the charcoal, since i can get it for free. Can i use coal from burnt wood? Because that would be REALLY cheap. If there is charcoal on top of the mix, how can you tell when it's melted?
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  #22  
Old 10-25-2004, 11:06 PM
kyle juedes kyle juedes is offline
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See... This is why i'm shying away from piping. It's melting point is 1980 F! I'm working with a small coffee can forge with a propane torch. 1980 is really pushing it! I might upgrade to MAPP if i can get any money.. but even for MAPP this is HIGH. :confused: Would a hair dryer boost the temp enough with propane?
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  #23  
Old 10-25-2004, 11:14 PM
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Propane plus air will melt steel! What is the melting temp of aluminum?


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  #24  
Old 10-25-2004, 11:20 PM
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Charcoal and air will get very hot too. It might be yor best bet if you get it free. what do you get? Lump or brickette? Eather will work for what you are doing. If you need plans to make an effecient charcoal forge with a blower, let me know and I will post a link.


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  #25  
Old 10-25-2004, 11:26 PM
kyle juedes kyle juedes is offline
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I'm probably sure that my parents wont let me have a coal forge. Their already iffy on the torch-forge. Alum melts at 1000. I could probably get bickettes from my neighbors. So, a hair dryer and a torch will melt copper for sure?

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KJ
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  #26  
Old 10-25-2004, 11:46 PM
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Depending on how you set it up. Messing with propane and alternating the original funtion of a torch is dangerous and should only be done by someone with experience with such things.

How about a wood fire? Charcoal is just wood with the water cooked out of it. When you when you set wood on fire and all the flame is gone and just the coals are left, you are then burning charcoal. When you add air it makes the charcoal burn faster and hotter. Look at this tutorial on makeing a forge in a barbeque grill and then tell me if it would be fesable for you to do something similar.
"Forge-b-que" click on the pic of the barbeque grill and look at the pics.


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  #27  
Old 10-26-2004, 09:06 AM
kyle juedes kyle juedes is offline
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Like i said, i don't know about a coal forge. I can deffinitely make a fire though. My first three blades were heat treated in my fireplace. The last blade took me a good three hours to get a good even heat on the knife . But, maybe a hairdryer would decrease that. The only problem i can see with a fire is that:

1. The whole purpose of me doing this is so i can cast a ring for a freind and to cast a couple "blocks" so i can grind them into guards. I don't suppose casting is very safe at all to do in the house. And i suppose my parents would shoot me if i did it!

2. since the aluminum has zinc, don't you run the risk of getting a bunch of zinc fumes in your house?

I'm limited in my ways to work becuase i live in a city, so i don't have much room to work with. How is Adding air to the torch altering it? I was going to have the torch on one side of the forge and the hair dryer pipe on the other. This way i dont have to alter the torches opperation to have air.
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  #28  
Old 10-26-2004, 09:16 AM
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Not sure how that would work. From my limited knowlege the air and gas need to mix before combustion. I see your deliema. Here is a link that mght help confuse you more.
backyard metalcasting


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  #29  
Old 10-26-2004, 01:11 PM
R. Lemmen R. Lemmen is offline
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Just for added emphasis, a personal story:

When he was much younger, before the age of environmental restrictions, my father breifly worked at a zinc smelter in The Netherlands. At the time the people of that town called the factory "The Still (quiet) Dead". No one who worked there lived long past forty years old. Zinc fumes are nasty and should not be treated lightly. Luckily, my Father only worked there briefly and has suffered no ill effects.

You do not want to cast any metals INSIDE your home!!! Do it in a well ventillated shop or in an outdoor area a good distance away from combustible materials.

Cheers,

Rob
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  #30  
Old 10-27-2004, 03:00 AM
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Kyle- If you have access to an area where you could dig a hole and have electric power to run a hair blower, and you have enough charcoal (real charcoal, not briquettes), and a pipe (big enough to carry the air blast from a hair blower, you can melt steel if you want to. I haven't done it but I would think a hole 1.5' deep by a foot wide would be enough, and rig up the pipe so one end enters the bottom of the hole (you will have to obviously need to bury part of the pipe) and direct the blast from the blower into the above ground end of the pipe. I make my own charcoal but dry wood will work too, the more dense, the more heat it will produce. I converted my smoker/barbeque into a forge by just running a pipe into it and I now use a cheap shop-vac as a blower (with dimmer switch to control the blast) and I have often melted steel when I had it too deep for too long. The only drawback with charcoal is that when melting stuff, the fire consumes prodigious amounts of charcoal (or wood), so if you go this route, you will need to have plenty on hand.
BTW- aluminum contains no zinc unless you have some weird alloy- and for what it's worth, I have made nickel silver by melting 2 new pennies (zinc core) and 7 nickels.
I also burn the zinc off galvenized wire for making damascus in my ventilated garage, (in a propane forge) but I exit the garage while the zinc is burning (burning zinc gives off copious smoke and a distictive blue flame) and don't reenter till it's done. All this stuff is dangerous- you just have to use common sense and educate yourself beforehand as to the risks. Melting brass gives off toxic zinc fumes too- but people cast it all the time.
Despite the current safety hysteria and alarmist attitudes, common sense and knowledge
will allow you to work with zinc, mercury, even lead! This whole ultra-safety thing reeks of PC to me- enough of that, pardon my rant. Good luck!

Last edited by chipwit; 10-27-2004 at 03:03 AM.
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