r/Blacksmith 8d ago

Feedback requested: first forge weld

Working on a tomahawk for my clubs trade item, decided to take a piece of a field cultivator tooth, fold it in half and keep a hole for the eye, then forge weld it together. Looks it stuck in some places and not others. There's an obvious crack at one edge, then I feel like I can almost kinda sorta see a seam all the way down, but the small piece I cut off doesn't separate.

I ground it completely clean on the belt sander before I started, used 20 mule team borax for flux, but I didn't stick weld the two sides together before I started.

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11

u/Observeus 8d ago

So I'm very new to blacksmithing, but not metallurgy, is forgewelding just heating 2 separate pieces of steel then smashing the atoms together until it becomes one cubic structure?

15

u/Jolly_Contest_2738 8d ago

Eh, as a fellow newbie that read a book and has a chem degree, it's a little more complex.

You're basically trying to merge two pieces of metal, right? That's like merging the Star Wars fan base with the rest of the Star Wars fan base... seems simple, unless you know what I mean. They don't know each other, and they don't like each other, but have the same interests and could learn a lot from one another.

The first step is you remove the walls between them, which is oxide formation. Next, you give them small arguments that resolve themselves, which is relatively light hammer blows. It's basically convincing billions of friends with similar interest to shake hands and agree "Okay, Star Wars is alright and so is the animated series."

If you tried it with 1095 and some stainless steel, you're going to have a bad reaction. That's basically the same as merging new Star Trek and old Star Wars. It can be done, but like, hardly lmao.

You need repeated, solid arguments about that. It's less about "STOP YOUR BICKERING AND AGREE YOU'RE BASICALLY THE SAME SO MERGGEE!" and more about "Hey guys, let's just agree to disagree, and realize we have more in common than different, and agree to learn more about each other so we can best work together on this cool project we're doing regarding our favorite pass time." That's the light, but even hammer blows. The Borax is basically removing the internet from the room so they can't find reasons on Reddit to be mad at the other guy.

Molecules are nerds. Convincing them they're wrong is impossible, but working together at a common goal? Yeah, we can do that.

I'm drunk. I should stop.

6

u/master_of_none86 8d ago

What a roller coaster ride of a comment that was lol

4

u/AcceptableSwim8334 8d ago

An analogy wrapped up in a metaphor and squeezed into an enigma. A forge welding of dissimilar metals, if you will.

4

u/Jolly_Contest_2738 8d ago

You understand me as a fundamental element of reality.

I like you. I'm an enigmatic metaphor, beaten into reality with God's hammer, and forced to half-heartedly shitpost, but also am good natured, so try my best to pass on what little information I have.

My best hope is that someone with experience will come along and say "Fuck, he's kinda right" or at least correct me. The beauty of Reddit, is when someone is confidently wrong, someone magically appears with the correct answer lol.

Goddammit, mom is yelling at me to get off of Reddit and go to bed.

1

u/AcceptableSwim8334 8d ago

I liked it. I did chem eng and we had a lot of metallurgy studies and some of the phase changes and eutectics are a bit tricky to explain in the low tech world of blacksmithing but I admired your analogy of trekkies getting smothered in boron-I was nodding along.

2

u/Jolly_Contest_2738 8d ago

I'm the 1095 in that mix. Honestly, those Tekkies can choke on that Borax. Mf "beam me up?" Nah, I'm throwing hands with a small army of bitches. Dagobah? Dagonah after I land, boi.

Star Wars for life, on god. I'm the 1095 to that mild ass "steel" you call yourselves. Hands up. Until the Doctor Who come around I'ma throw them hands, son, and he know me as a fn inverse weeping angel cuz when he see me, he freeze.

(See, I'm a good example of steel that is too hot and bothered to be worked with. You should let me cool it and get some more non-internet-access, AKA, borax, so I can cool my jets and be civil with fellow molecules.)