[TheForge] Drilling hard metal

[wmullett at bright.net]

I think Ron's advice about placing a larger piece of hot steel with thin material is the best idea I've seen for thin stock.  Better even than letting it cool between bricks.

If the item & backup steel come out of the fire together, the thin stock doesn't stand a chance of pre-cooling before you can get it in your annealing medium.

One of my friends uses kaowool bankets sandwiched between fiberglass blankets as his anealing medium.  Just lift the top blankets and insert your items.  You can have several layers of fiberglass top and bottom.

From: "Ron Childers" <munlaw2 at hcsmail.com>
Date: Thu Apr 20, 10:47 AM
To: "'Sponsored by ABANA'" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Subject: RE: [TheForge] Drilling hard metal

Andy, try a masonry bit. A Paragon furnace will drop the temperature
incrementally; it should be soft enough to drill. Also, you might try
putting the blade in vermiculite with a piece of larger & hotter steel.
Leave it overnight.

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Gladish Family
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 10:15 AM
To: Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Re: Bricks- Light vs heavy

This is interesting, because I've made a few pretty nice knives with L6 
and 1095, basically a forged sandwich with the bread being L6 and the 
baloney 1095. The big problem I have is drilling rivet holes through the 
L6. IS there a way to anneal it enough that you can drill it? Nothing 
I've tried so far gets it soft enough to drill, and punching is an 
inferior method for this, I think.

Andy G.



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