[TheForge] Borax (Was: A36 vs 1018)

[Mike Spencer]

> No idea, but I use anhydrous borax in my fluxes and it makes better
> welds for me, even after it reabsorbs moisture from the air in humid
> Mississippi.

I don't do a lot of forge welding but when I do, I use home-made
anhydrous borax: Melt it in a ladle (PITA), pour out on a steel plate
where it becomes a blackish/greenish, brittle, glassy sheet.  Break it up
with a hammer and run it through an old meat grinder.

Off the shelf borax is around 40% to 50% water by weight.  All that
foaming, twisting action when you put it into the fire drives me
nuts. Two thirds of it falls off into the fire to become clinker. My
melted and ground-up stuff just sticks to the hot iron and flows like
it's s'posed to.


FWIW,
- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^