Wrought Iron - I don't understand it

[Rocket_Jason]

Hi Guys-

I have been trying to figure out how to forge some old raft chain into some useful knife furniture. The chain was pulled from a river up in Michigan. I figure it was underwater for at least 100 years, maybe more. It's fairly pitted due to rust.

If I forge it at a high heat (not quite welding) it starts to pull apart. If I forge it at a low heat (dull red color), it pulls apart. Same for somewhere in the middle. And it cracks on all sides, not just the end grain. Is there are trick to forging this stuff? Is it the iron itself? I have never forged wrought before and therefor have nothing to compare it to. I sure would appreciate your insight!

Thanks,
Jason

[Robert Mayo]

Jason forge it at high welding heat the hotter the better.
Bob

[Alan L]

Yup, if it's rusted down between the fibers, you have to try to re-refine it. That means rewelding the whole thing.

How does it look if you saw a chunk off and etch the cut ends? If you can see dark lines of rust, it's easier to find another source of iron than to get it to stick.

[Rocket_Jason]

Alan-

I'll have to take a look at it tonight. You can actually see the grain on the surface of some of the links due to the rusting. But I'll have a look at the inside.

-Jason

[metalbender]

hey man, send me a SASE padded envelope that is covered for 2$ postage and ill mail ya some wagon rim wrought

[Alan L]

Since all wrought is different, all you can really do is play with it to see what it likes. Some of it doesn't like to forge, some of it seems softer than copper. Brush most of the rust off to keep the scale down (rust converts to scale in the forge), and try a few forging attempts at a full welding heat. Don't worry about burning it, any sparks you get are just carbon which you don't need anyway. Wrought will take a good 200 degrees more heat than mild steel without melting, and often needs that much when you first start drawing it down.

Are you using gas, or solid fuel like charcoal/coal/coke? Some gas forges can't get hot enough to weld wrought to itself.

[Rocket_Jason]

Metalbender - Thanks for the offer! I'll take you up on it. Can you email me your postal address (jmgekeler -at- yahoo.com)?

Alan - I was using gas and I am not sure if my forge (venturi type) will reach welding temp... I have never tried it. Then again, I have never used above 4 lbs of pressure either so it may reach temp. I do have a small coal forge just in case.

-Jason

[Rocket_Jason]

Here are a couple of picts of what I am talking about. You can see the piece I tried to forged flat... It's cracking all the way around and there is a long crack right down the middle. The other picture is what the link looks like when cut in half and etched for 3 minutes. Is this what you were talking about Alan? It's more like lots of black spots rather than lines. I'm going to try forging it at welding heat this weekend. It will be fun to see what happens.

-Jason

[Delbert Ealy]

Jason,
Send me your phone # and I'll give you a call when I can, I may be able to give you a little background on whats going on inside the steel and some tricks to working it.
Thanks
delbert@ealyknives.com

[Alan L]

Well, that's kinda what I was talking about, but not as bad as I was suspecting. Looking at the forged bit, it looks like you didn't get it hot enough and/or worked it down into the red ranges. It's true what the old books say, good iron can be forged at almost any temperature. Trouble is, good iron is hard to find!

Off to Harley's in a few minutes, see y'all monday sometime.

[metalbender]

info sent

[B.Finnigan]

I have found that when forging wrought to hammer very lightly around the edges and even lighter when you are upsetting it. If you get the iron up to a bright yellow heat then you don't need much force to move it. The cracks will forge weld back together real easy but just use light force.

The edge on this wrought hawk head split several times on me as it got thinner. Each time I just brought it back up to weld heat and fixed the splits. After the initial filing I did not find any splits. Notice all the slag that has been worked out of it.

[Rocket_Jason]

Nice hawk Brent.

Thanks for all the help guys! Delbert called me on Friday and gave me some very specific pointers on what to do. (Light hammer blows, high heat, work in small "areas" and work evenly). I was indeed able to forge weld the piece back together. I continued to work it at welding temp and had no further problems. I was surprised to see all the impurities that I worked out of it. I even went so far as to weld two pieces together. Hopefully I will have the time later on this week to upset the bar and make it a little wider.

Thanks again!
-Jason

[B.Finnigan]

It gets a little more predictable after you have some of the slag out and it starts to consolidate into purer iron.

It's only wrought iron after it has been worked.

[Rocket_Jason]

I am still amazed at how much I am working this stuff down. I'd say that I am finishing with a piece about half the size I started with. I'm not burning it off and there seems to be an awful lot of slag. Is this type of reduction normal?

-Jason