That perfect forge weld that fell apart the next day

Last Tuesday I spent 4 hours on a single billet of pattern welded steel, got a flawless weld with no cold shuts, and was feeling like a master smith... then Wednesday morning I found a crack running right through the middle from thermal stress. What went wrong with my heat management between the hammer and the quench? Has anyone else had a near-perfect piece fail after the fact?

3 comments

3 Comments

jennifer_jenkins25d ago

Oh man that stings! What worked for me was normalizing the billet twice before quenching to let the steel relax.

kellyjones24d ago

Wait so when you say "let the steel relax" are you talking about like a specific soak time at critical temp or just letting it air cool slow before the quench? I've always just done one normalizing cycle and then straight to quench, never had a crack issue but I'm working with 1080 mostly. What kind of steel were you doing this on?

adam_patel24d ago

Four hours on one billet? That's rough but honestly one bad weld doesn't mean you messed up the whole heat management system. Cracks happen sometimes even when you do everything right. I'd say you're overthinking it just a little. Normalizing twice before quench helps but it's not a magic fix for every single crack. I've had perfect looking welds crack overnight for no clear reason at all. You probably just hit a weird grain growth or a tiny inclusion that didn't show up until it cooled. Move on, try again, and don't stress over one piece that fell apart.