Finally figured out why my forge welds kept failing

I spent about 6 months trying to forge weld and maybe 1 in 10 actually held. Last week I was talking to an old smith at a hammer-in in Ohio and he watched me work for a minute. He said 'your fire is too clean, you need some scale in there.' I had been wire brushing every bit of scale off the pieces before welding. Now I leave a thin layer on and my welds stick almost every time. Anybody else find something obvious they were missing for way too long?

3 comments

3 Comments

jordanc326d ago

Huh, that's actually counterintuitive - I always thought flux was supposed to handle the scale issue. Wonder if the type of steel you're using matters more than people think.

casey_harris6d ago

Yeah @jordanc32, I used to think flux was the magic fix too but you just changed my mind on that.

charlie_ellis6d ago

Funny enough I used to be in the same boat, thought flux was the answer to everything. But after testing a few different steels with the same flux, the results were way different than I expected. Definitely changed my mind on how much the base metal itself plays a role.