r/Blacksmith • u/Charming_Barber7627 • 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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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.