Spent 8 hours trying to fix a simple forge weld that should have taken 20 minutes

I was working on a set of fireplace tongs last weekend and needed to forge weld a simple joint. Thought I had everything right - clean metal, right flux, good heat. But that weld just kept falling apart every time I pulled it from the fire. I retried like 5 times, adjusting my heat each go, before I realized my anvil had a thin layer of grease on it from when I oiled it earlier. Every time I set the piece down to hammer, the grease was contaminating the weld. Cleaned the anvil face with acetone and the weld stuck on the first try. Eight hours wasted on something that dumb. Has anyone else had a forge weld fail because of something stupid like a dirty anvil or wrong flux mix?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_amy26d ago

@kim_johnson51 that hammer thing is brutal, I've totally done that before! It's funny how one tiny oversight can snowball into hours of frustration. That's basically the story of my whole life though - it's always the dumb little things that trip you up, not the big stuff.

xenaf5126d ago

the dumb little things" is literally my whole life summed up lol. I swear its always something stupid like a dirty rag or grabbing the wrong flux that sets you back an hour. The borax flux tip is solid though, I might have to try that since my cheap self always buys the generic stuff.

kim_johnson5126d ago

Dude that anvil grease thing is brutal. I had almost the exact same problem once with a set of fire pokers. Wasted a whole afternoon before I realized I'd been wiping my hammer head with a rag that had WD40 on it from cleaning something else. Every time I struck the weld I was just pushing oil right back into the joint. Cleaned the hammer face with acetone too and it stuck perfect on the next heat. Now I keep a dedicated clean rag just for hammer and anvil faces and never let anything with oil near my welding station. You ever try a borax based flux? I switched to that and it made a huge difference for me, seems to tolerate small mistakes better than the other stuff.