[TheForge] Welding 5160

[Ed F]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph Sproul" <brhlbsmt@mcttelecom.com>

> but, when he heard I was making hand held tooling for blacksmithing, he
just
> laughed and said......it will be just fine to heat it to red(forging it to
> shape) and let it air cool on it's own.  You'll have to grind to shape
after

I found that H13 needs to get to a kind of glowing orange to harden.  The
Uddeholm tech rep. thought I should temper the H13 after the cooling.
Uddeholm outlines that procedure in their tech. info.  It involves holding
it at something like 800 deg.  I referenced a book on it and it said it was
optional.  I haven't heard of any smiths doing it so I guess it's ok to skip
it...  I did have a hot cutter (not tempered)splinter off on the edges of
struck end though.


>         In reguards to welding power hammer tools, this is always what
I've
> done is preheat, then Tig weld or Mig weld handles to all the steels used
> with a carbon steel wire.
>         I found some of my air hardened tools to break with the carbon
wire
> (if the piece had been forged and cooled before I welded the handles on).
> So I've tried using a SS wire(309) to fasten handles to hardened tools
(with
> the preheat of course).  These are just my findings and I was asking how
> others have made out.

I preheat to dull red then weld it with a rod called Weldmold 880.  It comes
in stick or tig filler.  I use the torch to bring the tool to that bright
orange then stick it in a bucket of vermiculite.  (Violating the 1 hr/in
rule.)  With H13 & S7 it's come out hard and the weld hasn't broken on any.
Well, except on the hot cutter mentioned above where I tried to weld on the
brittle end of a splintered tool to make a better (safer) striking surface.
Eventually the button of weld broke off.

Ed