[TheForge] Fwd: bog iron/pig iron to wrought iron

[Ron Childers]

John Butler did a demo "steeling" a piece of wrought iron. He started with a
piece about 1/4" wide and chiseled a groove on the edge into which he forge
welded a piece of 1/4" square high carbon steel. He then finished forging
the knife blade and heat treated.

Ron C

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Daniel Kretchmar
Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2007 3:41 PM
To: Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Fwd: bog iron/pig iron to wrought iron

Andy and Bruce,

Both were very helpful! Thank you!

Now another few questions:  I would like to make a knife for my wife.
My wife is in the SCA (like me) and protrays the part of a woman
living in Viking Dublin (890 AD).  I know she should be carrying a
wrought iron knife.   I know how to make steel knives and carving
tools and have made a few in medium and high carbon steel as well as
with pattern welding, but I have never made one from wrought
iron....How do you harden and temper it?  Does normalizing work on
wrought iron in the same way as steel?  Should I quench in water or
oil? or wax?  Should I do a full straight down quench (like I do for
my pattern welded blades) or do an edge quench like I do for my
carving tools..

Inquireing reenactors want to know  :)

Daniel Kretchmar
who plays the part of Danr Ketilsidr ("small cooking pot" craftsman in
old norse)

On Dec 30, 2007 12:43 AM, Andrew Vida <osan at netlabs.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> Daniel Kretchmar wrote:
> > Greetings,
> >          A few months back I participated in an iron smelt at the home
> > of Stewert Stone in Ripon, WI.  He built the furnace out of clay and
> > pulled out a sizable bloom.  A bunch of us (SCA blacksmiths) heated up
> > the bloom in a stone forge and pounded it into managable ingots
> >
> > .....Now a question.  I took the ingots home and I have used my JYH
> > Tire hammer to pound it into bar stock but somewhere I remember
> > reading that I should fold and weld it several times to convert it to
> > wrought iron............Can anyone help me out here?  What's the next
> > step?
>
>        Drawing and rewelding comprise the process of refining.  As it
comes
> out of the furnace, the bloom is worthless.  There are numerous voids in
> the iron, much of which is filled with slag.  The purpose of drawing the
> bar is twofold.  It alters the bloom into a useful form (bar, sheet,
> etc.) and also it drives out the excess slag.
>
>        As the slag and the iron are drawn, they intermingle with each
other,
> forming long threads of iron and iron silicate which orient themselves
> parallel to the direction in which the bar is being drawn and resulting
> in an almost wood-like structure.
>
>        After the first drawing, most of the slag has been forced out, but
much
> remains.  The grain structure is coarse and under the hammer may have
> some rather undesirable characteristics, such as splitting like wood
> when forged at anything less than bright yellow heat.  Such iron is
> called "muck bar" and is good for many applications, but not all, e.g.
> the creation of fine architectural work including gates and window
> treatments, or furnishings such as tables, or utensils such as forks.
>
>        Nicking the muck bar and rewelding/redrawing results in a
> single-refined iron.  Such iron will be a bit more forgiving than muck
> bar in terms of temperature, but not so much.  Nevertheless, it has its
> uses - e.g. some of the simpler straight elements in a garden gate such
> as uprights.
>
>        Another reweld/redraw produces double-refined iron, which has yet
more
> slag forced from it, a finer grain structure, and is therefore a finer
> product.  Such iron may be suitable to the decorative elements of that
> garden gate including scrolls, leaves, animal figures, etc.
>
>        Yet another reweld/redraw results in triple-refined wrought iron,
the
> highest grade commonly available.  This iron is very fine-grained, far
> more forgiving in terms of cold-shortness, and would be used in the
> production of the finest items such as instruments, tools, household
> utensils, etc.
>
>        There was another grade that was finer yet and that was called
king's
> bar.  There is not much in the literature about it, save to say that it
> was the finest iron available, was very costly, extremely fine-grained,
> and not very common at all.
>
>        That's wrought iron refinement in a very small nutshell.  I hope
you
> find this marginally helpful at the least.
>
>        Regards,
>
>        -Andy
>
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