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Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey
In fact, if you are doing a lot of welding, you will get to the point where you can "feel" that the material is ready to weld. Its like there is an invisble line between you and the material in the fire and you just know when it is ready. A little bit of anhydrous borax can work wonders as a flux, especially in coke.
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Alan,Michel,Graham and All,
I like borax..sometimes with some cast iron filings for a tricky weld..it goes liquid and baths the work.
I am lucky in that I have a rather fully tooled shop (50 weight hammer, 45 ton hydraulic press, small rolling mill and soon a 3B Nazel (265 weight air hammer) will be online.
I like pattern-welding quite a bit and like Alan says the "feel" comes in time, but gas does let you view the steel and take some liberties that are not possible in other fuels (like walking away to refill the coffee cup) while the billet cooks. I have done 45 pound billets of steel in the past, but rarely work over 20 pounds now..15 being the "normal" size for the tools I have.
I just finished this axe and sword for an exhibit. The blade is a yataghan varient with three bar composite (300 layer top and bottom with 150 layer center twist). The Axe is a five bar composite with three twisted layers and two straight..20 layer bar each.
Ric