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Take pieces of the two metals you normally make Damascus from, mill them down into chips, then do the same process. Maybe just a pinch of cast iron so it's only .01% of the whole thing. Put it in a larger container and shake it to mix it first. Could lead to interesting results
You got to let the cast iron heat up and then quench the canister in water then go for your normal forging process and warning don't use a power hammer when forge welding cast iron
@@chrisj9961 it's a good thing that you're here. A gentleman who is so good at his job , that he has over 2 million followers, probably doesn't know about iron dust fires.
The difference in tool life in the milling inserts is because the round inserts are stronger because they don't come to a sharp point like triangular or square inserts. The round inserts also make a more gentle engagement with the material verses the sharp points of other inserts.
also the triangular insert holder is a Shoulder mill and is for machining the periphery of the work piece it will give a a 90 degree shoulder step where as any number of face mills are for producing large flat surfaces with no concern for a vertical wall.
The lower melting point of cast iron is kinda the reason it get's used for casting in the first place. At 4.3% carbon content, the melting point of that eutectic iron-carbon alloy is lowest at 1147°C
The dog hairs are actually a good thing. When the steel is heated the dog hair will burn consuming oxygen and pretty much turning into just carbon (which pretty much has no significant effect at this point). But the oxygen will get bound with carbon into carbon dioxide and will also not react at all with the steel in any significant way. Having free oxygen in the can with the steel is however very bad as we do not want that oxygen to bind to our metal and produce horrible horrible oxides. So yes, adding dog hair in you Damascus is a good thing. If you don't have dog hair handy, a small scrap of paper will also do.
Another important reason 2 dump the chips into molten metal, rather than pounding the 'slag' oxide whatever into the center of the material = dum. All this 'can' krap is stupid. Just melt it all = vux zake.
absolutely adoring the amount of machinist comments on this video, from safety to in-depth reasons as to why the cast iron dust didnt work from its carbon content. love this side of youtube.
For anyone wanting to try this, be sure that the chips have been cleaned of any cutting oil, as these usually contain something to prevent coldweld of material to the tooling. This will also prevent the chips from consolidating during the Canister process.
Came here for this. An old teacher of mine had to amputate his right hand because of steel shavings. He slipped and fell and shoved his hand straight down into the box of shavings under the lathe. There was... nothing left of the hand. Just slop.
@@Nanakiyamilmao i doubt it, there'd definitely be a lot in his hand and maybe impossible to get them all and control the inevitable infection. but c'mon now, the human hand wouldn't turn into mashed potatoes even if those were real razors.
@@mbentley06 Doubt all you want. Surgery has come a long way today. They probably could have fixad it today. He was my teacher through 93-96, and this happened sometime 20 years before that. So late 70s... I didn't really have a reason to assume he was lying. Neither do you.
Some folks already pointed this out, but cast irons have a melting point at around 1200C, which is near the same as copper! Electric kilns can get to those temps, and propane is higher.
There is a classical recipe called "Gipsy damascus". Which is all kinds of scraps the travelling Gipsy blacksmith could find in a village. Mixed with a powdered cast iron. The scraps being a very low carbon steel at best, or rather iron nails and wire and maybe some broken sewing needles. Mixed with a cast iron in a right proportion that would theoretically produce a damascus of a low carbon steel fibres with a high carbon fragments in between. Of course, to produce a good blade that has to be done very carefully, requires a great deal of experience.
it always makes me smile whenever i see these older machines still being used. the very first job i had when i left school was working for alfred herbert (huge tool and machine maker from Coventry uk). they went on to become one of the biggest suppliers of lathes, all hand built in one of 5 huge factories spread over quite a few acres. keep up the great work Alec.
So my machinist handbook class came into play, we were taught that the radius of the insert affects the strength, so a triangle insert has less area hitting the part so it has less around it to support it, were a circular insert has more insert around it to help support itself, it is contacting more but it does have more support
Literally just commented the same thing. They need to take a few mins and think about things. - Lower melting point inpure powdered metal - Higher melting point steel skin that is now at a temperature that allows easy elastic deformation - then put under a power hammer, if it didnt already have a hole, it could have been like stomping on a waterbaloon full of burning phosphorus. Additionally if you start putting contaminated oily dusty chips in containers and welding it shut without a relief hole, your canister may actually now be a pressure vessel..and your putting that under a power hammer, without a visor… I love Alec’s projects but would hate for him or Jamie to get hurt for not taking a few minutes to think things through, they both hold equal responsibility to look out for each-other.
I had the same thought. Rather like putting the toothpaste tube on the floor and stomping on it except that the toothpaste has been stored in the bowels of hell and the tube’s opening is aimed at your face. Interesting but volatile. 🥸👀🤔
I would recommend putting a majority of the chips into the canister and filling the voids with the cast iron powder. Also let it soak in a little so the carbon content can combine with the two materials and make a possibly usable steel billet.
@@z0phi3l only if you need a supply of carbon. Also be sure to use grey cast iron and not white cast iron. The silicon in white cast iron isn’t good for steel.
One need to remember that cast iron melt at a lower temperature than steel, that itself, melt at a lower temperature than soft iron. Heat, let rest and slowly cool down, heat again, then compress. Maybe start the compaction using a hand hammer instead of a power hammer.
when we did some milling and lathe work at school our teacher wanted us to save all the chips and we had a specific bin for them, so they can be send all that back to the metal shops so they can melt and recycle the metal since its still good material
yeah you melt them into a blovk then try to forge it, also they get cleaned by a solvent and argon is likely used to reduce oxidation between the chips
13:18 larger corner radius causes “chip thinning” takes less horsepower and is a more consistent load on the carbide. Less chatter and better cutting geometry on the new insert.
Chip thinning is more dependent on tool step over combined with feed rate. Tool nose radius doesn't have an impact on it. As an example, radial chip thinning typically refers to the chips produced from a fluted endmill. A face mill is essentially a collection of lathe bits making many interrupted cuts.
The larger the nose radius on an insert, the stronger the tool. Those triangular inserts look like they might be an eight or sixteen thou radius, while a round insert has a radius half the size of the insert. HOWEVER, even though the insert is stronger, you have much more contact, and therefore more heat and tool pressure will be generated while cutting. Therefore, round inserts are good for roughing, triangular inserts are good for light finishing passes. Source; I'm a journeyman machinist.
Another thing I'm not seeing anyone else mention is the nature of a copy mill having similar behavior to a feed mill. There is a chip thinning effect that helps reduce tool pressure and allows more heat into the chip vs the part or the tool, so you aren't literally burning up your inserts.
Alternate history where Harry Potter is rescued by his blue collar uncle Hank and works a forge making custom knives. Ol' Harry smoked em unfiltered and sent the Snake hippies packin.
When selecting types indexable mills for applications, there are several geometries that come into play that affect how the tool performs. In the instance of the triangular inserts versus the circular inserts, the biggest factor would be chip thinning. The triangular inserted tool has the lowest axial and radial forces but it also has the least amount of Chip thinning. Therefore it can only take small depths of cut and lower surface footage. That tool is much better for side milling or taking smaller radial depths of cut The button, cutter or round inserted cutter has a stronger profile initially and it is able to stabilize radial and axial forces equally. This allows you to take your chip and elongate it which allows you to take more material in a stable cut. You can take full depths of cut with this tool or you can side Mill, along with full slotting type engagement. Therefore, it is one of the most versatile tools in the toolbox.
I think I subscribed to you many years ago, when you were making lots of damascus steel in the old workshop. Then I was so busy with my graduation thesis that I forgot about your channel. Now a few years later the algorythm bring me back again when you making another damascus. Wow
The technical term for mill shavings is "swarf," which I think we can all agree is much more fun to say than "mill shavings." There was a time when I thought about patenting a neck wrap to keep blue hot swarf from going down the neck of my coveralls whilst milling and calling at The Swarf Scarf but I don't have any ambition, so y'all should do something with that.
It is possible to use this powder for damascus, but of a different kind. In russian it is called "Bulat steel" - and it is not forge welded, but instead low and high carbon powders or chips melted together in a crucible. When cooled and removed from crucible it makes very fine martensite texture, not lines like forge welded damaskus, but squiggly and swirly pattern. Resulting steel is very hard and looks beautiful.
Doesn't cast iron already contain way too much carbon? That is why it is brittle. After this episode I think the carbon probably lowers the melting point too... If anything you should keep it hot for long enough for the excess carbon to escape. Then you would get steel.
Cast iron has more carbon content in it than high carbon steel (2% vs 1% respectively). Adding charcoal would only make the issues Alec was having worse. The only option I could see working is Alec mixing the 4140 with the cast iron in a concentration that would be enough to dilute down the carbon content so it doesn't turn into a molten mess. Ideally, it should be left at heat to homogenise the carbon throughout the billet. I'm not sure if a standard mild steel cannister would be enough to handle this, a ceramic crucible would work better and then you'd end up with crucible steel.
Cast typically needs less carbon so try mild steel with time at temperature for carbon to diffuse. Smaller bits will help make it more homogeneous, so I'd try muld steel powder with cast iron. 50 50 mix would half the carbon content. Cast iron is typically 2 to 4 percent carbon so I'd shoot for 25% cast to 75% mild steel to shoot for better. .5 and 1% carbon content
@@johnsmithfakename8422 cast iron contains 2-3.5% carbon. Look it up. High carbon steel, such as 1080 has only 0.8% Edit: for completeness - pig iron is at 3.5-4.5% carbon.
Those are some big cans... The air trapped in can is why steel powder is used, and why some will put a piece of paper or two in the can : To use that oxygen to burn the paper instead of making rust. Cast iron is very high carbon content. It melts at a lower temperature than most steels. You should have reduced the temperature of the forge by 200°, or maybe even up to 400°.
@@shadownyxiancat750 Alec isn't a woodworker, not even close - he is a blacksmith / engineer and should stick to that. There's a also a time to know your limitations, but let me guess - you're GenZ
Gotta say, my day job is a mechanical engineer and I've always been fascinated by material science and metallurgy. I don't smith anything, but I watch every video and BOY!... you really make me want to start.
Melt the iron dust in a crucible then stir in the steel chips until it's mostly steel chips. Definitely want to use a flux. Try adding some chopped up brazing rod too. To get rid of cutting oils I'd put the chips and iron powder in a cloth bag and slosh it around in a bucket of solvent then spread it out to dry.
As a man who runs a Blanchard grinder that would be a horizontal rotary grinder in case you didn't know 84 in big is my table it's a big old table and I rock out with a Lufkin 70-year-old depth micrometer made in the state I live in, Michigan, (rust belt) gorgeous rolls so nice it's so smooth I appreciate you Alec I always have and I always will I've been watching you since you were a wee lad in London so keep it up my guy
This is giving me the "can you forge a meteorite" vibes. I'm going to say that it might be a better idea to melt the powder / shaving chips in a crucible to form a liquid that you can then cast into ingots would've been a better idea, then you can just take the ingots from there and do all your other projects with onwards. Also, there seems to be a lot of stuff in the powder / chips besides steel so maybe that's why the forge was billowing out the huge flames. I'm hoping Alec comes back to revisit this one soon!
The cast iron was just overheated, since the melting point can be as low as 1140°C if the carbon content is around 4.3%. Btw cast iron is defined as having above 2.06% Carbon at which point it stops absorbing with the iron matrix and gets left out as pockets of graphite, which would burn quite well as seen on video. The box it was welded into, being mild steel with less than 0,25% Carbon, was just containing the sloppy half-molten mess of cast iron acting like burning charcoal.
Jamie, hate to mention it, but your macro lens is a little smudged slightly left of center from our perspective. I thought it was my monitor, but going from full screen to a window it moved. 13:42
Hi, just got done watching this video, and I'm a bit of a material's nerd and found this amazing. One thing that could possibly be a really cool project would be machining a blade edge out of tungsten, then trying to forge weld other materials to it. And I'm using forge weld loosely, because the other materials i had in mind were nickel and copper it might be considered forge brazing? Not sure, ultimately I was just thinking that a copper tungsten nickel knife would be kind of epic. Thank you for the awesome videos!
im only an amateur machinist (3 years out of training) but i might have an answer to your endmill question: I operate a lathe mostly so take this with a grain of salt but; the finer the point of contact on your insert, the more stress it will receive over its lifetime. since you are making a finer point of contact with the sharp triangles, a lot of stress is focused into the cutting end of the tool. round inserts tend to make more contact with the material across the face of the insert (versus the literal POINT of contact on a triangle) therefore leading to less wear. I use 1 inch button tools all the time on my 60" swing farrell lathe and they tend to last me quite a few rough passes on my materials whereas my diamond finishing insert will break for seemingly 0 reason sometimes (that reason is that im dumb and didnt put a fresh insert in or rotate it in the holder). it all comes down to how much heat/stress the insert is absorbing from friction.
Cast Iron is just iron poured into a casting mold. The powder turned into a liquid with the slag and carbon. You'll need it to go into a liquid state, cool down, heat up again and if it's liquid then wait for it to cool down again until you can forge it when it's solid. Alternatively you could get it liquid and then cast pour it.
Cast Iron is Iron with typically 4.5% carbon in it ! The carbon surrounds the iron and prevents it sticking to other iron. Wrought Iron is iron that has had the carbon beaten out of it. The Bessemer converter removes carbon from the iron by blowing air through molten iron.
@@Wbfuhn no. Cast iron is defined by carbon content (2ish to 4ish percent carbon). Iron is an element. Cast iron is an alloy of iron, so is steel. A large part of making steel is reducing carbon content to less than 2ish percent. It is a bit confusing because cast steel is steel that has been formed by casting, but steel is an iron alloy that between .02% to about 2% carbon (often other elements, but carbon is what defines it).
13:10 Just by the shape alone, a round insert will spread the force of the cut more evenly across its cutting edge. You have experienced and explained to us how sharp edges can create higher stress concentrations and failures way back even before Will joined you in the shop. You were usually referring to an inside angle, but the principal is still the same for the outside angle of a hardened cutting tool.
The music imitating a mosquito buzzing right in my left ear, and only left ear, made me twitch and slap around my head at least 3 times before I realized it was part of the video!
Not a blacksmith, but I have taken quite a number of material classes. I was under the assumption that you don't "forge" cast iron, you cast it. Maybe you would have more success with it by first melting it down with a crucible and making ingots out of it? Then try to forge those, then add some carbon if it doesn't work.
You wouldn't add more carbon to cast iron since there's already more than it can absorb between the iron matrix. Some of it gets left out as pockets of graphite in between iron, which makes cast iron weaker than steel. The maximum Carbon percentage in steel is 2.06%. This mixture would've been around 4,3% Carbon due to the lower melting point of 1140°C as seen from a bright yellow color and sparkling I assume. It is very interesting though as an idea to cast it into a more forgeable shape.
Alec, I haven’t watched your channel for quite some time, but making pattern welded billets from milling chips was something I thought about a lot and I’m really glad you’re using those chips for something. I think they might turn out really cool mixed in with powdered steel maybe.
Drink LMNT is actually awesome. This is why casual sports drinks like powerade and gatorade don't make much sense. When you have been actually sweating, you CRAVE that salt, and it's DELICIOUS. Great ad, I've had the pleasure of editing together several drink LMNT ads for work myself. I can see how it would become a staple in a shop like yours! FYI, I'm not sponsored with them, have just worked with creators who have been, and gotten some by association. And it's really good. Grapefruit salt is quite yummy.
Round inserts are great for when you dont mill with the whole side of a regular cutter. When it's worn out, and you want to turn it to a fresh side, you can just turn it as little as needed. If you have 10mm radius instead of 10mm tall cutters and only face 1mm deep, you don't have to ignore the otherwise wasted 9mm.
Alec, all you had to do with that cast iron was cover it with flux and a lid, melt it, and pour it into a mold. Thus, CAST iron. (CI melts several hundred degrees below steel, BTW.)
Fun fact: a local Town mascot for the city in Bureau of Juneau in the fourth-ninth State of Alaska back in the 1920s and 30s named Patsy Ann got a memorial marker placed on the local Boardwalk to honor her memory. The bronze sculptor, a true artist, implemented hair samples from various breeds of dogs to immortalize and make manifest the bond between people and their animals.
To this day, the sections of bronze that make up her nose, ears, top of her head, and the back of her neck and shoulders are polished down to the bare bronze by the hands of people who come to pet the statue for good luck and respect for the iconic bull terrier.
This is a hill I'm willing to fight for, if not die on: "Decimate" means "to reduce by one tenth". It comes from a rarely used practice of discipline for Roman Legions where 1/10 of their members were selected for death, and the sentence was carried out by the other 9 guys not chosen. It was devastating because of the morale/psychological impact on the remaining troops, but it only reduced the troop numbers by 10%.
@@AnemoneEnemy It's almost as if meanings and language aren't a fixed concept and things will always change with the times. ...I am sorry, that was way too condescending. But yeah, nothing will really be completely the same after some time has passed. Much like the power hammer in the video!
The round insert has a larger "nose radius" to spread out the cutting pressure. We used to use "button" mills to do very heavy cutting on big open machining systems
13:00 The way I was taught said the surface area of the cutting insert mattered. Rounder edges have a lot more surface area and so can take that force that is applied to it. The triangle inserts I have only used for lathe work and is delicate, but more precise. There are better machinists out there that can explain way better than I can, but I can deliver the basics.
Not really. Blacksmithing is a very active job, I'm a blacksmith as well and I've given plenty of people health advice while at work. You may not see any relation but as a fellow blacksmith, I see plenty.
A little idea, no idea if it would work, I'm a woodworker not a metalworker after all... Take the cast iron dust, mix it with brass powder, heat it to the melting point of the brass, then let it cool and bind with the cast iron... I can't imagine any use for the resulting block, but might look kinda interesting.
A rounded (ball-nose) bit tends to last longer when hogging metal due to several reasons: Even Load Distribution: The rounded shape of the bit distributes the cutting forces more evenly across the cutting edge. This reduces the concentration of stress at any single point, which can help prevent chipping and breaking of the tool. Reduced Chipping and Cracking: Sharp-edged bits, like triangular ones, can create high-stress points that are more prone to chipping and cracking, especially when cutting harder materials like metal. The smoother, rounded edge of a ball-nose bit helps minimize these stress concentrations. Heat Dissipation: The rounded profile can help in better heat dissipation during cutting. Excessive heat is a common cause of tool wear, and improved heat management can enhance the tool's lifespan. Smoother Cutting Action: Ball-nose bits tend to have a smoother cutting action compared to sharp-edged bits. This reduces the impact forces on the cutting edge, resulting in less wear and tear. Chip Evacuation: Rounded bits can sometimes offer better chip evacuation in deep cuts, reducing the chances of re-cutting chips and causing additional wear on the tool.
I work in a steel forge but the machine shop. Got asked to help out in the forge one day. I had to move the hot forgings in the 32,000 tonne press. Very nerve racking but great fun. I was stood in a jet of water to cool down that sprays the scale off until someone told me it was river water.
Being a metal worker it's crazy that you are surprised cast iron melts when that's how and why they call it cast iron.. but as the son of a 52 year knife builder I would love to see some Damascus from d2 and O1 then oil quench tempered
PLEASE READ Could you put the cast iron powder in a can and liquify it in the forge, let it solidify, pull the solid piece out of the can, weld it to a handle. Then put it back in the forge and monitor the temperature visually? It’s obviously harder to monitor the powder’s temperature when it’s in the can.
The reason the round inserts do better than the triangle inserts is the nose radius in contact with the material being cut. The round inserts provide more uniform surface area and spreads the load better then the finer point of the triangle also the larger contact area produces less "ridges"or cusp as i was taught and thus a smoother finish. The sharper corner of the triangle is good for making square corners on the face of the material but because of the smaller nose radius is often more annoying to get a good finish out of and wears quicker with heavy cuts... Also insert grade makes a difference. our shop has 3 general grades with one made for soft material like aluminum, copper, and plastics, one grade made for general purpose mild steel and some carbon steel, and another for hardened and tool grade steel. I'm only 15 or so years in to the trade so there's older farts out there with more secrets to share after they make you get the bar streacher lol
For the cast iron powder, I would recommend doing compression followed by lower temperature heating that very, very slowly cools off. Most likely, if there's any chance of success, it will come from giving the iron enough heat to change the crystal structures into something more homogeneous. My undergraduate work was in making large single grain crystals of HoMnO, so it's not quite apples to apples, but that's what I believe theory would suggest, if this is possible. (typed at 9:47)
I would love to have a lab of blacksmithing & material science. Sadly, over here in the States, you may as well be a millionaire in retail before you find money for a side hobby/passion/research like that.
For the next cast iron experiment: Rinse in isopropyl then let dry, heat lower, hammer more. The surface area of powder will allow for a greater thermal transfer per cm3. You will have to account for this. A tad bit of flux would not go unwelcome either.
If you want to mix cast iron with something else, try using 308L stainless, it might work, people use stainless stick welding electrodes to weld cast iron as an alternative to the insane price of cast iron welding electrodes in places where you can accept a bit less strength. Also the reason round insert face mills work so well is probably the same to why they are preferred in interrupted turning on the lathe, the start and end of each chip is less abrupt and doesn't cause as much impact on the insert
as for 13:13 it is because the round bits have more of a surface area to cut with and have a slightly altered relief angle than the triangle bits. I also love round bits a lot more!
Every time I watch one of this 'can X thing be made into damascus' and you're filling the canister (with it going EVERYWHERE) I find myself yelling at the screen "my god man,. have you never heard of a funnel?!" 😆😆
The problem with cast iron is the higher silica content lowers the melting point to around 1150 degrees Celsius, or around 2100 degrees Fahrenheit. The higher the silica, the lower the carbon content as the silica blocks the carbon from joining with the iron. The bright yellow color of the canister indicates a temperature above 1200 degrees Celsius.
Basic chemistry tells me that when you heat that iron in the forge, given it's mostly powder, that it will smelt instead to liquid. I think in this case, it will fail to create an iron billet but in a crucible would be able to be re-used to pour into a mold to make something from the molten iron.
Damascus blades were first manufactured in the Near East from ingots of wootz steel that were imported from Southern India (present-day Tamil Nadu and Kerala). The Arabs introduced the wootz steel to Damascus, where a weapons industry thrived.
With the round inserts your entering angle varies with depth of cut wich in turn varies the chipp thickness. Round inserts can therefore run a high feed per tooth at a low depth of cut, but needs a lower feedrate in deeper cuts. A 90 degree entering angle limits feedrate a lot and its main benefit is being able to shouldermill at a high depth of cut. A 45 degree entering angle usually has the highest metal removal rate as it has a good balane between depth of cut and feedrate.
Round inserts on a face mill are stronger because edges act as a weak point, even though they can leave a nicer finish. Round inserts also have the cool little detail of having the most possible cutting edges out of any insert. if the insert were to go dull, you just have to rotate it a little and keep going. I am pretty sure they are much more expensive because of the "Infinite cutting edges" thing though.
A colab with you and inheritance machining would be INCREDIBLE. not sure if you have seen his channel but worth checking out for all the home shop machining content
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Thanks for watching guys, I have a bucket of grinding room floor dust I think we need to test next 👀👀.
Please check out our sponsor today, LMNT I’m really excited to work with them as love the product! DrinkLMNT.com/forge
Is it possible to make a slag Damascus?
Take pieces of the two metals you normally make Damascus from, mill them down into chips, then do the same process. Maybe just a pinch of cast iron so it's only .01% of the whole thing. Put it in a larger container and shake it to mix it first. Could lead to interesting results
You got to let the cast iron heat up and then quench the canister in water then go for your normal forging process and warning don't use a power hammer when forge welding cast iron
I’ll caution you about having a dust fire.
@@chrisj9961 it's a good thing that you're here. A gentleman who is so good at his job , that he has over 2 million followers, probably doesn't know about iron dust fires.
The difference in tool life in the milling inserts is because the round inserts are stronger because they don't come to a sharp point like triangular or square inserts. The round inserts also make a more gentle engagement with the material verses the sharp points of other inserts.
That was my guess too! They are a more self-supporting shape.
Stress concentrations. It's the same reason why airplane windows are rounded and not square.
also the round ones you can just rotate like 15° and have a fresh edge!
As for the downsides: mainly just higher tool pressure, so more deflection / need better workholding.
also the triangular insert holder is a Shoulder mill and is for machining the periphery of the work piece it will give a a 90 degree shoulder step where as any number of face mills are for producing large flat surfaces with no concern for a vertical wall.
The lower melting point of cast iron is kinda the reason it get's used for casting in the first place. At 4.3% carbon content, the melting point of that eutectic iron-carbon alloy is lowest at 1147°C
And the forge is probably set at around 1300° to 1500°C. So, need to lower the temperature by about 400°C.
I feel he would've had more luck if he just left it in the block and didn't try to forge it.
@@polarknight5376 Ya, was going to say , just compress it , heat it and let it cool. My GM engine block was made with sintered iron powder.
@@Kualinarmore likely 1150-1200c not that high
The extreme carbon content is probably also the reason for the flames, especially in powder form.
Alec I dare you to make a sword without any power tools
Same
Not that hard if you just start from a leaf spring. Though harder if its like cast steel billet.
I raise it tomake it from from scratch
Sure that's a video already on the channel... Not complaining if another one gets made though! :-)
He's done it before but it was a Damascus knife
The dog hairs are actually a good thing.
When the steel is heated the dog hair will burn consuming oxygen and pretty much turning into just carbon (which pretty much has no significant effect at this point). But the oxygen will get bound with carbon into carbon dioxide and will also not react at all with the steel in any significant way. Having free oxygen in the can with the steel is however very bad as we do not want that oxygen to bind to our metal and produce horrible horrible oxides.
So yes, adding dog hair in you Damascus is a good thing. If you don't have dog hair handy, a small scrap of paper will also do.
getting the wife to contribute after telling her a marine buzz cut is all the rage ?
Another important reason 2 dump the chips into molten metal, rather than pounding the 'slag' oxide whatever into the center of the material = dum. All this 'can' krap is stupid. Just melt it all = vux zake.
absolutely adoring the amount of machinist comments on this video, from safety to in-depth reasons as to why the cast iron dust didnt work from its carbon content. love this side of youtube.
For anyone wanting to try this, be sure that the chips have been cleaned of any cutting oil, as these usually contain something to prevent coldweld of material to the tooling. This will also prevent the chips from consolidating during the Canister process.
Cast iron dust like that soaks up oil like crazy. Which we even saw in the video. That would easily explain what went wrong.
@@arthurmoore9488 cast iron also has a way lower melting temperature, I don't understand why he didn't account for that
@@arthurmoore9488 and why no flux
Yeah I came to say the same thing. You would think when he found a dog hair off the floor that it would have been a reminder to clean the steel.
Cold-weld?!?! How would they cold-weld in air and not in HV (high vacuum)?
0:28 Disclaimer: don't grab steel shavings with your bare hands if your hands are not used to real work: They are small razor blades.
Tips for little boys with soft baby hands (sorry liberals, it’s called dark humor)
Came here for this. An old teacher of mine had to amputate his right hand because of steel shavings. He slipped and fell and shoved his hand straight down into the box of shavings under the lathe. There was... nothing left of the hand. Just slop.
@@Nanakiyamithere is no way that story is true
@@Nanakiyamilmao i doubt it, there'd definitely be a lot in his hand and maybe impossible to get them all and control the inevitable infection. but c'mon now, the human hand wouldn't turn into mashed potatoes even if those were real razors.
@@mbentley06 Doubt all you want. Surgery has come a long way today. They probably could have fixad it today. He was my teacher through 93-96, and this happened sometime 20 years before that. So late 70s... I didn't really have a reason to assume he was lying. Neither do you.
Some folks already pointed this out, but cast irons have a melting point at around 1200C, which is near the same as copper! Electric kilns can get to those temps, and propane is higher.
There is a classical recipe called "Gipsy damascus".
Which is all kinds of scraps the travelling Gipsy blacksmith could find in a village. Mixed with a powdered cast iron. The scraps being a very low carbon steel at best, or rather iron nails and wire and maybe some broken sewing needles. Mixed with a cast iron in a right proportion that would theoretically produce a damascus of a low carbon steel fibres with a high carbon fragments in between.
Of course, to produce a good blade that has to be done very carefully, requires a great deal of experience.
dude, that's what I'm saying!
He messed up the temp it seems, it looks way too hot.
Shoulda treated it like butter, shake the jar until it clumps together, 'mix' the bubbles out of the dough-like iron inside.
Did that Ukrainian knife maker do something similar?
it always makes me smile whenever i see these older machines still being used. the very first job i had when i left school was working for alfred herbert (huge tool and machine maker from Coventry uk). they went on to become one of the biggest suppliers of lathes, all hand built in one of 5 huge factories spread over quite a few acres. keep up the great work Alec.
So my machinist handbook class came into play, we were taught that the radius of the insert affects the strength, so a triangle insert has less area hitting the part so it has less around it to support it, were a circular insert has more insert around it to help support itself, it is contacting more but it does have more support
Cutting pressure, there is weird curve between pressure and and cuts per feed rate.
Hitting a solid container with molten metal inside, while the whole thing is near your unshielded face, seems unwise.
Literally just commented the same thing.
They need to take a few mins and think about things.
- Lower melting point inpure powdered metal
- Higher melting point steel skin that is now at a temperature that allows easy elastic deformation
- then put under a power hammer, if it didnt already have a hole, it could have been like stomping on a waterbaloon full of burning phosphorus.
Additionally if you start putting contaminated oily dusty chips in containers and welding it shut without a relief hole, your canister may actually now be a pressure vessel..and your putting that under a power hammer, without a visor…
I love Alec’s projects but would hate for him or Jamie to get hurt for not taking a few minutes to think things through, they both hold equal responsibility to look out for each-other.
@@Goochgravysuppliersthat cast iron was indeed molten.
I had the same thought. Rather like putting the toothpaste tube on the floor and stomping on it except that the toothpaste has been stored in the bowels of hell and the tube’s opening is aimed at your face. Interesting but volatile. 🥸👀🤔
Sorry have you met Alex before??? 😂😂
@@Goochgravysuppliers I't definitely molten "lmfao" "lmao" etc
I would recommend putting a majority of the chips into the canister and filling the voids with the cast iron powder. Also let it soak in a little so the carbon content can combine with the two materials and make a possibly usable steel billet.
He just has to do what shurap does. Lol
Was wondering, would the cast iron work better doing it Wootz style like FZ does
@@z0phi3l only if you need a supply of carbon. Also be sure to use grey cast iron and not white cast iron. The silicon in white cast iron isn’t good for steel.
@@thomasthecrunkengine3512Well, there’s carbon in the dog hair, so maybe add some of that.
One need to remember that cast iron melt at a lower temperature than steel, that itself, melt at a lower temperature than soft iron.
Heat, let rest and slowly cool down, heat again, then compress. Maybe start the compaction using a hand hammer instead of a power hammer.
I have to admit, watching you make a mess, repeatedly, with that cast iron powder was truly entertaining. 10/10 on the creation of a truly hot mess!
0:13 holding an orange hot crucible 😱. Blacksmith hands are just different.
Well you live up to your moronic name
Lol
when we did some milling and lathe work at school our teacher wanted us to save all the chips and we had a specific bin for them, so they can be send all that back to the metal shops so they can melt and recycle the metal since its still good material
yeah you melt them into a blovk then try to forge it, also they get cleaned by a solvent and argon is likely used to reduce oxidation between the chips
13:18 larger corner radius causes “chip thinning” takes less horsepower and is a more consistent load on the carbide. Less chatter and better cutting geometry on the new insert.
Chip thinning is more dependent on tool step over combined with feed rate. Tool nose radius doesn't have an impact on it.
As an example, radial chip thinning typically refers to the chips produced from a fluted endmill.
A face mill is essentially a collection of lathe bits making many interrupted cuts.
The larger the nose radius on an insert, the stronger the tool. Those triangular inserts look like they might be an eight or sixteen thou radius, while a round insert has a radius half the size of the insert.
HOWEVER, even though the insert is stronger, you have much more contact, and therefore more heat and tool pressure will be generated while cutting.
Therefore, round inserts are good for roughing, triangular inserts are good for light finishing passes.
Source; I'm a journeyman machinist.
Another thing I'm not seeing anyone else mention is the nature of a copy mill having similar behavior to a feed mill. There is a chip thinning effect that helps reduce tool pressure and allows more heat into the chip vs the part or the tool, so you aren't literally burning up your inserts.
Alternate history where Harry Potter is rescued by his blue collar uncle Hank and works a forge making custom knives. Ol' Harry smoked em unfiltered and sent the Snake hippies packin.
amazing dynamic shot at 4:00
When selecting types indexable mills for applications, there are several geometries that come into play that affect how the tool performs.
In the instance of the triangular inserts versus the circular inserts, the biggest factor would be chip thinning.
The triangular inserted tool has the lowest axial and radial forces but it also has the least amount of Chip thinning. Therefore it can only take small depths of cut and lower surface footage. That tool is much better for side milling or taking smaller radial depths of cut
The button, cutter or round inserted cutter has a stronger profile initially and it is able to stabilize radial and axial forces equally. This allows you to take your chip and elongate it which allows you to take more material in a stable cut. You can take full depths of cut with this tool or you can side Mill, along with full slotting type engagement. Therefore, it is one of the most versatile tools in the toolbox.
"It feels like I'm forging a gummy bear" has GOT to be one of the strangest lines around a blacksmith shop.
Not really some things feel soft and sticky like a gummy bear.
I think I subscribed to you many years ago, when you were making lots of damascus steel in the old workshop. Then I was so busy with my graduation thesis that I forgot about your channel. Now a few years later the algorythm bring me back again when you making another damascus. Wow
So you unsubbed
I didn't, just too busy and didn't watch anything for a few weeks and youtube just don't recommend again until now
I feel like this is the first Alec Steele video I've been shown in about 3 years. Algorithm doing weird things. I used to watch all his videos.
The technical term for mill shavings is "swarf," which I think we can all agree is much more fun to say than "mill shavings."
There was a time when I thought about patenting a neck wrap to keep blue hot swarf from going down the neck of my coveralls whilst milling and calling at The Swarf Scarf but I don't have any ambition, so y'all should do something with that.
It is possible to use this powder for damascus, but of a different kind. In russian it is called "Bulat steel" - and it is not forge welded, but instead low and high carbon powders or chips melted together in a crucible. When cooled and removed from crucible it makes very fine martensite texture, not lines like forge welded damaskus, but squiggly and swirly pattern. Resulting steel is very hard and looks beautiful.
If you still have some cast iron dust, try mixing it with charcoal first and making your own carbon steel.
Doesn't cast iron already contain way too much carbon? That is why it is brittle. After this episode I think the carbon probably lowers the melting point too... If anything you should keep it hot for long enough for the excess carbon to escape. Then you would get steel.
Cast iron has more carbon content in it than high carbon steel (2% vs 1% respectively). Adding charcoal would only make the issues Alec was having worse.
The only option I could see working is Alec mixing the 4140 with the cast iron in a concentration that would be enough to dilute down the carbon content so it doesn't turn into a molten mess. Ideally, it should be left at heat to homogenise the carbon throughout the billet. I'm not sure if a standard mild steel cannister would be enough to handle this, a ceramic crucible would work better and then you'd end up with crucible steel.
@@piokul
I think you are referring to Pig iron.
Cast typically needs less carbon so try mild steel with time at temperature for carbon to diffuse. Smaller bits will help make it more homogeneous, so I'd try muld steel powder with cast iron. 50 50 mix would half the carbon content. Cast iron is typically 2 to 4 percent carbon so I'd shoot for 25% cast to 75% mild steel to shoot for better. .5 and 1% carbon content
@@johnsmithfakename8422 cast iron contains 2-3.5% carbon. Look it up. High carbon steel, such as 1080 has only 0.8%
Edit: for completeness - pig iron is at 3.5-4.5% carbon.
Those are some big cans...
The air trapped in can is why steel powder is used, and why some will put a piece of paper or two in the can : To use that oxygen to burn the paper instead of making rust.
Cast iron is very high carbon content. It melts at a lower temperature than most steels. You should have reduced the temperature of the forge by 200°, or maybe even up to 400°.
that's what the dog hair was for
@@csaw1499 nature is beautiful
Making an epoxy table out of the chips would look really cool, especially with all of the blue chips.
maybe ship them to an existing epoxy creator, we don't need more of them lol
@@wouldiwasshookspeared4087rude, let people be creative
@@shadownyxiancat750 Alec isn't a woodworker, not even close - he is a blacksmith / engineer and should stick to that. There's a also a time to know your limitations, but let me guess - you're GenZ
Gotta say, my day job is a mechanical engineer and I've always been fascinated by material science and metallurgy. I don't smith anything, but I watch every video and BOY!... you really make me want to start.
0:16 2cm tolerance^^
I'm sure you're joking, but that's the space for the key
Its so satisfying watching the forge scale peel off as the hammer does its work
I really like how you sealed the 4140 box in the press
Melt the iron dust in a crucible then stir in the steel chips until it's mostly steel chips. Definitely want to use a flux. Try adding some chopped up brazing rod too. To get rid of cutting oils I'd put the chips and iron powder in a cloth bag and slosh it around in a bucket of solvent then spread it out to dry.
As a man who runs a Blanchard grinder that would be a horizontal rotary grinder in case you didn't know 84 in big is my table it's a big old table and I rock out with a Lufkin 70-year-old depth micrometer made in the state I live in, Michigan, (rust belt) gorgeous rolls so nice it's so smooth I appreciate you Alec I always have and I always will I've been watching you since you were a wee lad in London so keep it up my guy
Love your passion for experimentation , people like you are the reason why we first discovered steel
Wow, I caught this one quickly
Edit: My guess on the rounded face mill is there's more surface area doing the cutting vs. the triangular cutters.
"Isn't that pretty" 11:37 😂 Guy's having a blast.
I should call her… 11:25 - 11:40
@@oualid7343 i thought the same thing ^^
11:16 Forbidden Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Forbidden jelly donut
Forbidden gusher
Hey Alec, a little tip: if you oxidize the can before filling it, the steel won’t stick to it so much and you can just peel it off with a chisel
1:28 “a choob of chips”
Beat me to it 😂
This is giving me the "can you forge a meteorite" vibes.
I'm going to say that it might be a better idea to melt the powder / shaving chips in a crucible to form a liquid that you can then cast into ingots would've been a better idea, then you can just take the ingots from there and do all your other projects with onwards.
Also, there seems to be a lot of stuff in the powder / chips besides steel so maybe that's why the forge was billowing out the huge flames.
I'm hoping Alec comes back to revisit this one soon!
If you melt it together it won't be Damascus anymore. It'll just be less good steel because of the higher iron content
The cast iron was just overheated, since the melting point can be as low as 1140°C if the carbon content is around 4.3%. Btw cast iron is defined as having above 2.06% Carbon at which point it stops absorbing with the iron matrix and gets left out as pockets of graphite, which would burn quite well as seen on video. The box it was welded into, being mild steel with less than 0,25% Carbon, was just containing the sloppy half-molten mess of cast iron acting like burning charcoal.
9:50 It's cast iron, what did you expect...?
Jamie, hate to mention it, but your macro lens is a little smudged slightly left of center from our perspective. I thought it was my monitor, but going from full screen to a window it moved. 13:42
Hi, just got done watching this video, and I'm a bit of a material's nerd and found this amazing. One thing that could possibly be a really cool project would be machining a blade edge out of tungsten, then trying to forge weld other materials to it. And I'm using forge weld loosely, because the other materials i had in mind were nickel and copper it might be considered forge brazing? Not sure, ultimately I was just thinking that a copper tungsten nickel knife would be kind of epic. Thank you for the awesome videos!
Forgot to mention this in the above post, but the result i was thinking would be like your makume gane videos.
im only an amateur machinist (3 years out of training) but i might have an answer to your endmill question:
I operate a lathe mostly so take this with a grain of salt but; the finer the point of contact on your insert, the more stress it will receive over its lifetime. since you are making a finer point of contact with the sharp triangles, a lot of stress is focused into the cutting end of the tool. round inserts tend to make more contact with the material across the face of the insert (versus the literal POINT of contact on a triangle) therefore leading to less wear. I use 1 inch button tools all the time on my 60" swing farrell lathe and they tend to last me quite a few rough passes on my materials whereas my diamond finishing insert will break for seemingly 0 reason sometimes (that reason is that im dumb and didnt put a fresh insert in or rotate it in the holder). it all comes down to how much heat/stress the insert is absorbing from friction.
Cast Iron is just iron poured into a casting mold.
The powder turned into a liquid with the slag and carbon. You'll need it to go into a liquid state, cool down, heat up again and if it's liquid then wait for it to cool down again until you can forge it when it's solid. Alternatively you could get it liquid and then cast pour it.
Cast Iron is Iron with typically 4.5% carbon in it !
The carbon surrounds the iron and prevents it sticking to other iron.
Wrought Iron is iron that has had the carbon beaten out of it.
The Bessemer converter removes carbon from the iron by blowing air through molten iron.
@@Wbfuhn no. Cast iron is defined by carbon content (2ish to 4ish percent carbon). Iron is an element. Cast iron is an alloy of iron, so is steel. A large part of making steel is reducing carbon content to less than 2ish percent. It is a bit confusing because cast steel is steel that has been formed by casting, but steel is an iron alloy that between .02% to about 2% carbon (often other elements, but carbon is what defines it).
If Harry Potter was a blacksmith instead of a wizard...
0:34 this guy is like a metal pot head. Storing his shavings until he has enough to get stoned.😂
13:10
Just by the shape alone, a round insert will spread the force of the cut more evenly across its cutting edge.
You have experienced and explained to us how sharp edges can create higher stress concentrations and failures way back even before Will joined you in the shop.
You were usually referring to an inside angle, but the principal is still the same for the outside angle of a hardened cutting tool.
This is exactly what smith yt needed. I've been asking this for years. And the extra bits for cast iron? Top notch cook
Alec imploring the KitKat process of wanting to make more Damascus from the chips of Damascus made of chips.
The music imitating a mosquito buzzing right in my left ear, and only left ear, made me twitch and slap around my head at least 3 times before I realized it was part of the video!
+2 unitl I backed the video to confirm that I wasn't crazy...
Same.
Exactly man.
Not a blacksmith, but I have taken quite a number of material classes. I was under the assumption that you don't "forge" cast iron, you cast it. Maybe you would have more success with it by first melting it down with a crucible and making ingots out of it? Then try to forge those, then add some carbon if it doesn't work.
You wouldn't add more carbon to cast iron since there's already more than it can absorb between the iron matrix. Some of it gets left out as pockets of graphite in between iron, which makes cast iron weaker than steel. The maximum Carbon percentage in steel is 2.06%. This mixture would've been around 4,3% Carbon due to the lower melting point of 1140°C as seen from a bright yellow color and sparkling I assume. It is very interesting though as an idea to cast it into a more forgeable shape.
11:30 would make for the perfect collaboration with the slo mo guys
Alec, I haven’t watched your channel for quite some time, but making pattern welded billets from milling chips was something I thought about a lot and I’m really glad you’re using those chips for something. I think they might turn out really cool mixed in with powdered steel maybe.
Next week: making a sword from grinder dust
Ah, not made a sword in ages... More Whack Whack! :-)
@@NikolaHoward More *snap* OW too
Making a sword from grindr dust would be even harder
@@Matt_Alaric especially considering that most grinding wheels are made with aluminum oxide as an abrasive.
@@lynndonbarr3153 yes, Alec would have to separate the steel dust from the abrasive particles somehow. Magnet?
Try making Wootz/Crucible steel instead of forge welding maybe?
I didn’t know Harry Potter was a machinist
Drink LMNT is actually awesome. This is why casual sports drinks like powerade and gatorade don't make much sense. When you have been actually sweating, you CRAVE that salt, and it's DELICIOUS. Great ad, I've had the pleasure of editing together several drink LMNT ads for work myself. I can see how it would become a staple in a shop like yours!
FYI, I'm not sponsored with them, have just worked with creators who have been, and gotten some by association. And it's really good. Grapefruit salt is quite yummy.
Round inserts are great for when you dont mill with the whole side of a regular cutter. When it's worn out, and you want to turn it to a fresh side, you can just turn it as little as needed. If you have 10mm radius instead of 10mm tall cutters and only face 1mm deep, you don't have to ignore the otherwise wasted 9mm.
The dog hairs might be key, but my bet is more on the cobwebs :)
So where's the damascus?
Damascus is in England
A small high pitched 'yes' escaped my mouth when I saw this video
I very much appreciated the dark background in the bright glowing Cube I love watching people Forge
Alec, all you had to do with that cast iron was cover it with flux and a lid, melt it, and pour it into a mold. Thus, CAST iron. (CI melts several hundred degrees below steel, BTW.)
Fun fact: a local Town mascot for the city in Bureau of Juneau in the fourth-ninth State of Alaska back in the 1920s and 30s named Patsy Ann got a memorial marker placed on the local Boardwalk to honor her memory. The bronze sculptor, a true artist, implemented hair samples from various breeds of dogs to immortalize and make manifest the bond between people and their animals.
To this day, the sections of bronze that make up her nose, ears, top of her head, and the back of her neck and shoulders are polished down to the bare bronze by the hands of people who come to pet the statue for good luck and respect for the iconic bull terrier.
This is a hill I'm willing to fight for, if not die on:
"Decimate" means "to reduce by one tenth". It comes from a rarely used practice of discipline for Roman Legions where 1/10 of their members were selected for death, and the sentence was carried out by the other 9 guys not chosen. It was devastating because of the morale/psychological impact on the remaining troops, but it only reduced the troop numbers by 10%.
Weird hill to die on but at least you're dead
Decimate, also, means: "Killing a great many / a larger proportion" . It's funny how some words have more than one meaning.
@artsnow8872 they changed the definition since so many people misused the word!😂
@@AnemoneEnemy It's almost as if meanings and language aren't a fixed concept and things will always change with the times.
...I am sorry, that was way too condescending. But yeah, nothing will really be completely the same after some time has passed. Much like the power hammer in the video!
@@AnemoneEnemy Just like with figuratively and literally.
Today we learnt why cast iron is cast and not forged...
first time ever i see an ad from a youtuber I'd ever consider, good job Alec!
the color pulling out of both the second and third heat bath, on the 4140 chips, looked perfect!!
Cast iron powder is how the Pakistani knife makers make dark layers in their crapmascus
4:58 - Does anyone have the song's name?
The round insert has a larger "nose radius" to spread out the cutting pressure. We used to use "button" mills to do very heavy cutting on big open machining systems
13:00 The way I was taught said the surface area of the cutting insert mattered. Rounder edges have a lot more surface area and so can take that force that is applied to it. The triangle inserts I have only used for lathe work and is delicate, but more precise. There are better machinists out there that can explain way better than I can, but I can deliver the basics.
Getting health advice from a black smith, is like getting baking recipes from a lawyer. Definitely well meaning but not something you should listen to
Not really. Blacksmithing is a very active job, I'm a blacksmith as well and I've given plenty of people health advice while at work. You may not see any relation but as a fellow blacksmith, I see plenty.
Netflix: Are you still watching? Some dad's daughter: 11:25
A little idea, no idea if it would work, I'm a woodworker not a metalworker after all... Take the cast iron dust, mix it with brass powder, heat it to the melting point of the brass, then let it cool and bind with the cast iron... I can't imagine any use for the resulting block, but might look kinda interesting.
Watching the many Damascus material videos makes me happy in a way nothing else does
A rounded (ball-nose) bit tends to last longer when hogging metal due to several reasons:
Even Load Distribution: The rounded shape of the bit distributes the cutting forces more evenly across the cutting edge. This reduces the concentration of stress at any single point, which can help prevent chipping and breaking of the tool.
Reduced Chipping and Cracking: Sharp-edged bits, like triangular ones, can create high-stress points that are more prone to chipping and cracking, especially when cutting harder materials like metal. The smoother, rounded edge of a ball-nose bit helps minimize these stress concentrations.
Heat Dissipation: The rounded profile can help in better heat dissipation during cutting. Excessive heat is a common cause of tool wear, and improved heat management can enhance the tool's lifespan.
Smoother Cutting Action: Ball-nose bits tend to have a smoother cutting action compared to sharp-edged bits. This reduces the impact forces on the cutting edge, resulting in less wear and tear.
Chip Evacuation: Rounded bits can sometimes offer better chip evacuation in deep cuts, reducing the chances of re-cutting chips and causing additional wear on the tool.
I work in a steel forge but the machine shop. Got asked to help out in the forge one day. I had to move the hot forgings in the 32,000 tonne press. Very nerve racking but great fun. I was stood in a jet of water to cool down that sprays the scale off until someone told me it was river water.
Being a metal worker it's crazy that you are surprised cast iron melts when that's how and why they call it cast iron.. but as the son of a 52 year knife builder I would love to see some Damascus from d2 and O1 then oil quench tempered
You should make more bars from the chips and sell them.
PLEASE READ
Could you put the cast iron powder in a can and liquify it in the forge, let it solidify, pull the solid piece out of the can, weld it to a handle. Then put it back in the forge and monitor the temperature visually? It’s obviously harder to monitor the powder’s temperature when it’s in the can.
The reason the round inserts do better than the triangle inserts is the nose radius in contact with the material being cut. The round inserts provide more uniform surface area and spreads the load better then the finer point of the triangle also the larger contact area produces less "ridges"or cusp as i was taught and thus a smoother finish. The sharper corner of the triangle is good for making square corners on the face of the material but because of the smaller nose radius is often more annoying to get a good finish out of and wears quicker with heavy cuts... Also insert grade makes a difference. our shop has 3 general grades with one made for soft material like aluminum, copper, and plastics, one grade made for general purpose mild steel and some carbon steel, and another for hardened and tool grade steel.
I'm only 15 or so years in to the trade so there's older farts out there with more secrets to share after they make you get the bar streacher lol
For the cast iron powder, I would recommend doing compression followed by lower temperature heating that very, very slowly cools off. Most likely, if there's any chance of success, it will come from giving the iron enough heat to change the crystal structures into something more homogeneous. My undergraduate work was in making large single grain crystals of HoMnO, so it's not quite apples to apples, but that's what I believe theory would suggest, if this is possible. (typed at 9:47)
I would love to have a lab of blacksmithing & material science. Sadly, over here in the States, you may as well be a millionaire in retail before you find money for a side hobby/passion/research like that.
For the next cast iron experiment: Rinse in isopropyl then let dry, heat lower, hammer more. The surface area of powder will allow for a greater thermal transfer per cm3. You will have to account for this. A tad bit of flux would not go unwelcome either.
If you want to mix cast iron with something else, try using 308L stainless, it might work, people use stainless stick welding electrodes to weld cast iron as an alternative to the insane price of cast iron welding electrodes in places where you can accept a bit less strength.
Also the reason round insert face mills work so well is probably the same to why they are preferred in interrupted turning on the lathe, the start and end of each chip is less abrupt and doesn't cause as much impact on the insert
That almost made a super fine wood grain look in the steel. Very cool man!
as for 13:13 it is because the round bits have more of a surface area to cut with and have a slightly altered relief angle than the triangle bits. I also love round bits a lot more!
Havent watch you in a couple years, still making Damascus everything
Love that new steel chop saw. They're only 50 years in the making but absolutely a game changer.
Every time I watch one of this 'can X thing be made into damascus' and you're filling the canister (with it going EVERYWHERE) I find myself yelling at the screen "my god man,. have you never heard of a funnel?!" 😆😆
The problem with cast iron is the higher silica content lowers the melting point to around 1150 degrees Celsius, or around 2100 degrees Fahrenheit. The higher the silica, the lower the carbon content as the silica blocks the carbon from joining with the iron. The bright yellow color of the canister indicates a temperature above 1200 degrees Celsius.
Basic chemistry tells me that when you heat that iron in the forge, given it's mostly powder, that it will smelt instead to liquid. I think in this case, it will fail to create an iron billet but in a crucible would be able to be re-used to pour into a mold to make something from the molten iron.
Damascus blades were first manufactured in the Near East from ingots of wootz steel that were imported from Southern India (present-day Tamil Nadu and Kerala). The Arabs introduced the wootz steel to Damascus, where a weapons industry thrived.
With the round inserts your entering angle varies with depth of cut wich in turn varies the chipp thickness. Round inserts can therefore run a high feed per tooth at a low depth of cut, but needs a lower feedrate in deeper cuts. A 90 degree entering angle limits feedrate a lot and its main benefit is being able to shouldermill at a high depth of cut. A 45 degree entering angle usually has the highest metal removal rate as it has a good balane between depth of cut and feedrate.
Round inserts on a face mill are stronger because edges act as a weak point, even though they can leave a nicer finish. Round inserts also have the cool little detail of having the most possible cutting edges out of any insert. if the insert were to go dull, you just have to rotate it a little and keep going. I am pretty sure they are much more expensive because of the "Infinite cutting edges" thing though.
man... i really miss working with metal, its such incredible fun
A colab with you and inheritance machining would be INCREDIBLE. not sure if you have seen his channel but worth checking out for all the home shop machining content