[TheForge] Re: Cheese is cold-short!

[Mike Spencer]

Bruce wrote:

> I'm used to using some scrap steel, such as vehicle springs, etc.  Any
> obvious stuff to avoid?

Just as a single data point, I forged a new tine for my TroyBilt
rototiller from truck flat-spring stock (new offcut from the spring
shop, not old, used spring).  It's been holding up fine for over a
decade of moderately abusive treatment.

Digression: During my only visit to a working steel mill, I was on
hand when they tapped the open hearth furnace into a ladle.  The
bridge crane toddled the ladle over near the catwalk and the guys
tossed several 50# paper bags of metallic manganses over the rail.
The paper flamed off in mid-air.  Presumably this was to sequester the
sulphur in the mix?  I think the steel was destined for railroad rail.
There was also a step of lowering a huge (ceramic?) cone into the
ladle and applying vacuum, said to remove hydrogen and reduce
(eliminate?) risk of hydrogen embrittlement in rails.

I didn't get to see the rail rolling mill in operation.  Just before I
arrived, a rail had somehow missed its target in going from one roll
to the next and there was a couple of hundred feet of now-cold,
half-formed railroad rail turned into an Al Paley sculpture.  There
were several guys out in the middle of the shut-down works with
torches, cutting it away.

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