[TheForge] Arc welding advice sought

[Mike Spencer]

Follow-up to my problem of brittleness & fracture in the HAZ when
welding m/s to truck helper spring stock:

   + Cut off a test piece of the stock.

   + Pre-heated in gas forge.  Turned kinda purple-ish but not a
     carefully controlled heat.

   + Welded while hot with 7018.  Just a butt weld, no V but reversed
     polarity.

   + Post-heated in gas forge.

   + Wrapped in ceramic wool batts until dead cold.

Once cool, I put the test piece in a heavy vise and tried to bust it
with a 12# sledge.  No sign of cracking.

So today I repeated the process with the actual work piece.  Almost
too big for the tube-type forge but I git it in and turned around
several times.  The m/s part was already tacked in place and it got
dull red but not the much heavier 2x3x8 inch spring stock.

It'll take all night for it to cool in the batts so we'll see
tomorrow.

An aside: That ceramic batt is great stuff. Set a hot workpiece on it
so the welding table won't draw heat.  Lay a piece over the top and
you can rest your gloved hand on the hot workpiece without getting
burned. 

Thanks all for the suggestions,
- Mike

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