[TheForge] Science fair project

Thu Nov 7 12:02:01 2002

FYI:

Recipe for "play dough":

1 part cornstarch
1 part table salt
water to wet to a slurry (not more than 1 part, if I recall correctly).
food coloring of your choice
cook over low heat till it thickens.

You might get a similar sort of "clay" with a different feel by using 2 =
parts white flour instead of the 1 part cornstarch.

BTW, in Commonwealth countries, "cornstarch" may be called "maize flour" =
or something of the sort.

Bruce
NJ

>>> [email protected] 11/07/02 10:38AM >>>
Play Dough would work great for this.  You could use different colors for
the layers.  Dan Tull uses Play Dough with beginners to show them how =
metal
will move.  He has a wooden hammer or mallet.  You could use a piece of
wood for the anvil if you were demoing in front of a class.

Bobby Hart
Hush Puppy Forge
Griffin, GA
OBG, AFC=20

At 08:26 AM 11/7/02 -0500, you wrote:
>Not a bad idea.  One use to which clay has been put is to test what
happens to the steel during various operations.  To do this, you make thin
layers of colored clay and press them together to get a striped "billet"
(like pattern welding, but with clay).  Then you slice them lengthwise
across the layers and put them together the other way to get a billet
that's "checkerboard" in cross section. =20
>
>Now you use that checkerboard billet in various forging operations.  I
have a book somewhere that shows the results.  I'll bet most of you hadn't
thought about where the steel goes in such operation!  For example, if you
upset a bar by placing the hot end against the anvil and hammering, you =
get
no mushrooming of the end - the checkerboard pattern remains as in the
original bar.  It is the material behind this that spreads.
>
>Once again, the catch is to turn this into an EXPERIMENT.  Demonstrations
don't (or shouldn't) win science fair competitions.  So hypothesize what
will happen to the steel in a billet in a certain forging operation, then
test it.
>
>By the way, this sort of experiment could provide very useful results for
people working pattern-welded billets who wish to give rise "natrually" to
elaborate patterns.  I'm sure some folks have already studied this, but I
don't know of any books on the subject.  (But then I'm not doing
pattern-welding!)
>
>Bruce
>NJ
>
>>>> [email protected] 11/06/02 08:07PM >>>
>Several people have done demos using clay instead of hot iron. This
>can be very effective.
>
>Rick Korinek
>Emerald City Forge
>Framingham, MA
>----- Original Message -----
>From: lama <[email protected]>
>To: <[email protected]>
>Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 7:43 PM
>Subject: Re: [TheForge] Science fair project
>
>
>> I don't know if the school is going to let you have any "HOT" things
>going
>> on.
>> Can he forge a leaf? He could show the progression in several steps
>of
>> forging a leaf.
>> Start with a piece of stock that is not forged at all and show the
>steps
>> leading up to a finished leaf.
>> dave m
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Kelloughs" <[email protected]>
>> To: <[email protected]>
>> Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 3:41 PM
>> Subject: [TheForge] Science fair project
>>
>>
>> > My 10 year old son is going to do a science fair project soon. He
>> frequently helps me at the forge and also likes to do his own little
>jobs. I
>> thought that it would be a good idea to do his project on
>blacksmithing as
>> no one at his school has done a project on this subject in recent
>past (that
>> we know about).
>> > My question would be: does any one know of a good project for him,
>or any
>> recourses we could use? Please keep in mind that he is ten years
>old, and I
>> want him to pretty much do the job him self with only my
>supervision.
>> > Thanks in advance
>> > John Kellough
>> >
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