Main Discussion Area > At the Forge
hot enough?
Don W:
One of the first forges I made I used and old vacuum cleaner for air. I rigged a cover for the exhaust and used a gate valve from a dust collector to cut the flow down. It was still to powerful so adding a T so much of the air flow could escape worked. It need to be just enough flow to feed the coals.
It will be magnetic until it's hot enough, then loose magnetic when it get to the point it needs to be. Once out of the fire it will gain it's magnetic properties back fairly quickly, but the temper will be gone.
Coals work better than fire, so if the scrap wood is pine or something like poplar, it's much harder to get it hot enough. Locust, oak and similar are best. Building a nice bed of coals is where you want to be.
paulc:
Good info...def crap wood. Mostly pine
KHalverson:
most good high carbon steel becomes non magnetic (critical) @ 1450 to 1500 degrees.
even though you can heat to over non magnetic once the steel cools it becomes magnetic again.
i would say you probably achieved a sub critical aneal..
the steel should be soft enough to easily file or drill.
Gimlis Ghost:
I had some old files I wanted to make into knife blades. I was using an old style two burner oil heater at the time. This type had seperate chambers with a cast iron ring around the inside above the vents the vaporised oil entered the chamber.
I placed a file crossways on the ring and lit the heater for the night. In the morning I cut off the heater and retreived the file. It had annealed enough I could cut it with a file so I worked it into a nice blade. Next day I took it outside and heated it with a MAP gas torch as much as I dared and dropped it into an old metal icetray full of burnt motor oil. The temper was perfect.
Hawkdancer:
Somewhere, I read that salt will melt around the same temperature that is right for proper forging. Smack me if I am wrong😀! I assume it is coarse salt.
Hawkdancer
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