Making backyard crucible steel
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- Опубликовано: 2 фев 2019
- First experiment with crucible steel. Learned a lot . Here’s some other videos on the subject
• Wootz Ep 1: Experiment...
• Wootz Ep 4: Making Woo...
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In the late 1970s there was an article in Scientific American magazine about research done at a University in Scotland on crucible Damascus steel. Part of their findings were that the most common mistake made in working the steel was overheating it, which burned off too much of the carbon. They found that the super high carbon steel became malleably plastic when heated to a moderate cherry red color. They also found that running a square cross sectioned billet through a roller mill as it cooled from cherry red to king's purple created a carbide matrix within the steel that was so fine it was only visible under an electron microscope. Footprint Tool Company of Sheffield, UK (out of business since 2009) adopted the technique and made some of the finest quality wood chisels and hand plane irons ever available. Several years later, Fine Woodworking Magazine did an article comparing wood chisels from England, Japan, Germany, and the USA by metallurgical testing. The Footprint chisel, when micro-sectioned, had the highest carbon content of all, and was the only one for which the carbide grain size was not given because it was beyond the test equipment's ability to resolve.
My 40+ year old set of Footprint chisels, which I carefully hollow ground on a slow turning wet wheel as soon as I bought them, have kept a good edge like no other blades of any kind that I have ever experienced. They have been honed from time to time, but have never needed to be reground. My finishing stone for honing is a natural black Arkansas oilstone. I will tell you from experience that there is nothing more pleasing than shaving a 3/8" wide curl off of the end grain of a piece of white oak with just hand pressure!
Thanks for this info. It's very interesting and informative.
*Points to broken glass.*
"Pieces of my love life right there."
A man after my own heart. Lol.
The secret ingredient...shards of a broken heart.
i had to rewind and play that a few times and then turn on captions just to make sure I heard him right.
I love it when people show their struggles because it helps us all. Thanks for a great vid!
Experimenting with various processes and techniques is how we learn what works and what doesn't. I think these sort of videos help others learn more about the craft and the more we, as artisans, share our experiences and techniques, the better it is for us all. Great video mate. Keep up the good work.
Crucible steel is fascinating, especially so because of the history.
So... a word of advice making crucible steel from another smith. #1 USE ZIRCONIA CRUCIBLES they are rated to handle the higher temps #2 YOU MUST VENT GASES just a small hole... I normally just shove straw sized hole through my steel making crucible lids or buy the 3kg ones that are vented with a pour spout and make a secondary lid with a hole.this is why the crucible ruptured literally exploded from the internal gasses... 3 I love the ribbon burner for a crucible.... or a forge with a forced air burner you really save on fuel and the temps required for smelting steel are achievable with propane.
@@ShadowcatsPC this is very informative thanks for sharing I for one will definitely try it
This was most definitely a win. The failures are lessons. And you still made high carbon steel.
Vanadium was the key to the original Wootz. Great stuff man.
And only a small amount of vanadium was needed, so you can get enough by adding 1 part W2 to 9 parts wrought iron in the original melt adjusting the amount of added carbon as needed.
When you learn from an experience it is a success. Very interesting
Tired but happy. That's good!!!
For your first go at it, it looks good! I like that you follow a scientific process in your video. Introduction, methods, results, conclusion.
I'm not a blacksmith however, I'm a scrap recycler, prices have been very bad, so I've been trying out casting, been great so far but I've been looking into steel and cast iron, haven't found anything really. Until I ran into these woots and forging methods. Very helpful
I think you did a great job. Couple of points: crucible was larger than most. Pieces of steel were largest that I've seen, most were extremely small pieces. The glass has been crushed glass instead of large chunks. Wishing you the best of luck.
Since you're going at it with the history that would be awesome to see you make some bloomery steel.
When you added the refractory clay you needed to leave a hole to let the gases vent.
Then why do so many blacksmiths that make canister steel completely plug it up?
@@darquone2238 Because canister steel, aka canister damascus, doesn't utilize glass and borax that can have gaseous reactions. Hence why flux and such are used in open containers or during open forging.
@@darquone2238 a lot of time they will still a small hole or hope the weld is porous enough to allow some venting. A steel canister absolutely can explode if there's no venting. I know a couple smiths it's happened to
If you learned anything, it is a success. You're the goat my guy! Keep it up!
Doesn't the crucible need to bleed the pressure as the air inside it heats up and expands? It probably ruptured due to internal pressurised super heated air. Either way, great video and good to see the experimentation. Another thing I saw recently was vanadium needs to be present for carbides to precipitate (with repeated heat cycling), forming the wootz pattern and giving the resulting metal superior properties over carbon steel. The video I saw mentions 0.05% vanadium by weight, so absolutely miniscule concentration, but without it, the carbides will not form.
I've never been blessed with the opportunity to smith, but vids on the subject are something of an addiction of mine. Watching this vid, i already get a sense of foreshadowing in your choice of wrought iron as your base material, because you dont know what impurities are present, like sulphur, phosphorous, etc. Cant make a silk purse outta sow's ear ... gotta start with silk, and the best wootz blades of the day all seem to have come from very specific region supplied from a very specific mine, per al pendray's vid.
I'd have guessed that a better way to stack the odds for success might be to start with materials of much higher/known purity that replicate the ore of the mine in question (if not the best quality ore you can mail order than perhaps powdered steel and then add al pendray's magic 1% of vanadium). Just thinking aloud.
I wish you the best of luck, and look forward to perusing the rest of this vid as well as any others you have on the topic. 😄
6:40 yeah, like I was saying about leaving the steel in large chunks not being a good approach, you can still see the outlines of those chunks in the result. Filing it smaller, and supplementing with pure powdered steel would have sped up the melt and facilitated a more homogeneous result. As is, the resilt looks more like canister damascus than raindrop wootz.
Still a bold endeavor, and very instructive - we learn by trial and error. Props to you, and thx for the opportunity to watch.👍👍👍
Do you think he is serious? He doesn't seem that he knows he is working on things having a temperature of more than 1500 Degree C.. In T-Shirt without glass and improper tong. Before playing with fire first he needs to educate himself about basic safety principles. Then your comment would be useful for him.
@@shibeshi2637 There's no need for unkind assumptions, esp since the gent in question probably has more actual experience than any 4 randomly chosen people in this thread combined.
It's nearly always better to be as positive and constructive as possible, which is the sort of feedback we ourselves would hope for if it was OUR vid. Just sayin.
Cheers.
You know Ive watched a good bit of your videos I feel like at this point, and I don't know if I've left a comment.
I just want to say, you do a great job. You are clear, and to the point, and no frills, but in a good way.
Useful video I thought these didnt exist anymore
Hey friend! Ive always struggled with my high carbon steel welds cracking. After some research, ive found that the higher the carbon content, the less heat the steel can tolerate without losing structural integrity. These repetitive forge welds have to be done at the lowest temperature possible otherwise it will break apart
If it did not work, but you learned something. Then it is a successful failure. Remember, FAIL is an acronym for First Attempt In Learning. Cheers mate.
I love that quote. ❤👍
I'm really excited to see what you can come up with. Live and learn, I definitely look at it as more successful than not. Very cool. Thanks for sharing.
Excellent upload, thank you!
So damn cool. Plenty of failures yes, but your working so far at the extremes of backyard smithing in temperature that the end result was awesome.
I think we all start to see why it cost a small castle. They didn't have a ribbon burner or cast to start with. Very impressed, will eagerly watch how this goes.
I totally like your channel! To see your Project and your knowledge that you share with us you rock!
Definitely one of my favorite RUclips Channel
Little tip it turns out vikings would actually use bones of an animal or an ancestor to imbue the sword with their spirit but in reality the carbon from the bone helped turn the iron into steel maybe something to try.
That was awesome! You set out to make crucible steel and by God you made crucible steel! I didn't think you would pull it off but in the end......Naw just F@cking with you, never doubted you for a second.
I'm first this time your videos are awesome john thank you for making these great videos i watch them all the time you just keep getting better and better
What a cool project!
Why do you use wrought iron and not just regular steel?
I usually learn more from my failures than if everything goes just right. Pretty neat. Keep trying.
Mean, this is something I want to try in the future.
It’s possible the steel also took carbon from the crucible - being graphite which is also a form of carbon. This might have been the cause of the rupture. A Ceramic/Aluminium Oxide crucible might be worth a look over graphite :)
Great video, we learn everyday. I'm hoping to smelt iron or steel in the next month or so.
Gotta video that!
Thanks for the post
The things you learned can be considered a success in it's self i think.
Nice! As long as ur pleased with it its a success. ur content is always great!
So... a word of advice making crucible steel from another smith. #1 USE ZIRCONIA CRUCIBLES they are rated to handle the higher temps TWO you need to be able to vent GASES just a small hole... this is why the crucible ruptured literally exploded from the internal gasses... 3 I love the ribbon burner for a crucible.... or a forge with a forced air burner you really save on fuel and the temps required for smelting steel are achievable with propane.
That is so cool!
It's a success in that you learned from it. Need to temper it before working, allow to cool slowly in the crucible, and vanadium is the secret according to Al Pendray.
Great attempt!!!!
Is there a way to add the carbon once the steel is molten? If so, adding some aluminum will "kill" the steel and help prevent all those air bubbles. That is what steel makers use to make steel (or they may use silicon). Limestone is also used to provide the insulating slag on top, so perhaps after melting the steel, killing it with aluminum, add the carbon and then top with crushed limestone or limestone / dolomite mix and keep firing long enough for the carbon to dissolve (I have NO idea how long that might be without stirring / mixing). Cool to see this done at home!
Awesome thank you for sharing
That is amazing.
Nice job very cool keep it up!
Just found you, love it, keep up the good work!!!!
Maybe not perfection, but that was definitely a success!
Even though it maybe wasn’t a complete success it’s still awesome!
I'd really like to see a channel called "If you were a time traveller" that had a main purpose of if you actually were a time traveller and got to the bronce age, how could you build electric generators, motors, forge high carbon steel, work stainless steel etc.
Basically seeing whether or not you could fast forward an ancient people through technological progress just by knowing how it's done.
In this here case it's a matter of how to find iron ore, how to make a crucible, how to build a furnace hot enough without gas and so forth.
I'm sure there's a video for each of those steps but I'd love to see someone do it A-Z
Marco2G how to make everything is actually doing a series pretty much just like that. Used Stone Age technology to make stuff to make bronze and are working on trying to smelt iron ore
@@OldHickoryForge Good to know, thank you!
@@OldHickoryForge I've had a look. Unfortunately, that channel takes so many shortcuts it's not even funny. Major disappointment to me...
NICE!
Bad ass !! Keep it up
This shit was dope man!
Wow you did pretty dam good please keep trying i wanna see more :D
Were longswords made out of crucible steel? If yes then i know what to make my longsword out of
insightful and entertaining. The spark test on the ingot was superb! definitely going to give this a go someday - thanks for sharing. What will you use the billet for? Keen to see...!
very cool man
A mixed success? Hmmmmmm
I think you deserve an A for effort and don't beat yourself up over it. Try try again. Good video friend...
Never clicked a video so fast
Wootz isn't a Synonym for crucible steel it's a special kind of crucible steel edit and there were cruciblesteel made in persia
Well done sir! Isn’t it exciting to try things like that just to see if it can be done?!
What if you sliced it into 1/4” pieces on a bandsaw like lunch meat and restacked it and pressed it in a hydraulic press at welding heat?
U need a very small hole in top of the cap on crucible. It works great. And it looked a bit hot. At lower temp it let's the carbon roll on crucible and the glass on top to collect impurities. Other than that great job. I like your set up.
What quality could be expected from melting nickel plated washers, nuts, bolts, and bits of steel wire? Being a trucker, I often see plenty of scrap washers, nails, bolts, nuts littering the locations I deliver to, and thinly made steel wire from rfid seals used is common enough. The goal would be to test how viable scrapping might be. Also, might including blue glass that has cobalt affect the quality any?
That seems like the type of thing that would be fun to test. Calculating the amount of carbon you want to add for a tool steel might be a bit more difficult.
I'd say it was a success, don't worry about the crucible those things always rupture and crack randomly.
damn cool!
It's a success
I was wondering, I've found a bunch of rusty nails (some really old, wrought iron, some recent, steel). There a way to make steel or wrought iron out of them? Could this be a way?
Canister damascus would probably be easier, it wouldn't make a good knife edge, but you could use it for a visually interesting cladding on a San Mai knife.
Honest question as I have not forged anything in my life: what keeps the crucible from becoming a bomb or a least rupturing when you seal it? I know it keeps oxygen out. However what keeps the air that is inside it from heating up, expanding, and causing the crucible to rupture?
An imperfect seal.
Ok that is fecking Awsome lol
What are you going to make with it? Most of the videos I’ve seen they always break the crucible so I don’t think that matters
At $200+ each for graphite crucible.. I'd say it definitely matters. Wait.. I just got my free money from Joe biden🤔
@@tbishop4961 I don’t know who is selling you your crucibles but they are scamming you. They are at most 30-40$. Usually less.
@@JustinTopp I found some cheaper ones. I was looking in all the wrong places🤦♂️🤣
Just an idea John with the steel that is not as good as the worked billet, you could use some of it as rivets or pins to make a project just that bit more unique
A good go at it though
It sucks that your crucible ruptured and your furnace got messed up but that steel is awesome!
You actually didn’t have it in long enough because of the bubbles which means the gas reactions didn’t finish
Edit:
It might also have been the borax that ruptured the crucible or caused the bubbles
Joel Pugsley that’s actually what I’m thinking too. Borax can be acidic at high temps. Hoping to attempt this again before too long and going to try it without the borax.
@@OldHickoryForge ruclips.net/video/OP8PCkcBZU4/видео.html This might be worth a look, the guys in this use leaves to add water and create hydrogen to lower the melting temperature of the puck and also use glass to cap off the top. Very interesting. I'm not a smith, though I plan to be as a hobby when I'm fit and ready. Really enjoyed your video!!!! You got a thumbs up and subscription from me.
Will you ever try making crucible steel again?
Uthbert viking sword cool reference great documentary on it on Netflix
You've participate at Forge in fire??
Nice experiment!!!
I was thinking of trying this, but I have alot of rail road spikes, I'm wondering could I use those, cut into pieces, and charcoal, I'm curious would that make a decent steel
Depending on those spikes. It’s probably a good steel anyway. Spark test it and see. No sense in ruining something in the chase to make it better
Quick question, can you make a laminated steel of 5160,s5 and l6 . I ask because those steel on paper seem like a good idea due to extreme high strength and durability just stand alone while being oil quenched steel and have pretty much the same quenching point for maximum strength.
In theory yes. 5160 however has very high failure rates when forge welding to itself. You’d have to keep 5160 from touching 5160 throughout the whole process.
@@OldHickoryForge There's a high chance of failure but it's makes a super alloy when it succeeds.
Where do you get your crucible’s ?
How do you determine the amount of wrought iron and charcoal?
You calculate the carbon percentage that you want (1-2% for Wootz)and then you measure that amount of charcoal by weight
Do you ever sell pieces of your experimental steel?
Did you add vanadium?
how did they measure 20 grams so long ago? im sure they had some measurements, but grams?
Wooot woootz lol :)
Pieces of my love life 😂
Factory clay should have a hole 🕳️ in the center of it . Trying with a hole in the center of it to let the gasses out .
Hey John,
First off thanks for all your videos. Really appreciate you share your knowledge.
You said that there actually are only a view real ulfbert sword made from crucible steel or, real Damascus or whatever it’s supposed to be called. Do you have any reference of those swords? Me and a buddy had a conversation once whether actually anybody checked on the steel itself whether it could be real wootz from Damascus, or whether that is even possible.
Many thanks,
Lenni
kubikusrubikus check out the documentary “secrets of the Viking sword” the explain it pretty well in there
Add some moly and vanadium and you’ll have Magnacut.
Duh yeah chrome
What state are you in ?
I'm always lamenting the lack of smithing hobbyists to meet up with in my area (Long Island, NY).
Id happily work for free in exchange for being able to learn and have fun (i'm retired).
did you make or buy that crucible? and if you made it what did you make it out of?
Matt Cable I bought it on amazon. Clay graphite crucible
The Ulfbert got its crucible steel from the Silk Road, js
What is a "wagon tire"?
I learning
Would this be the same as making a bloom, but in a more controlled environment?
Chris Adams not quite. In a Bloombery process raw ore is processed through a large charcoal fire where it melts down and collects in a large spongy mass as the bottom of the furnace. The bloom would then be forge welded solid and refined to make wrought iron. In the case of tamahagane (Japanese sword steel) the pieces of the bloom that behave as high carbon steel are separated out and used to make the sword. The crucible steel process takes existing wrought iron and re melts it in an airtight environment with a carbon source. Ideally (when your crucible doesn’t break) would lead to a much higher degree of purity that would be found in puddle iron or wrought iron.
@@OldHickoryForge Oh wow, it's a whole different process entirely. Thank you for the explanation of both processes. If you're gonna have another run at it, Good luck!
what is the white paste that you covered the crucible?
Refractory cement
thanks mate
I saw a RUclips blacksmith put a finished knife inside an iron case packed with charcoal powder and flux. Is that possible to? If so it would be easy to cut a piece iron and grind it into shape before hardening with carbon later. Would love to know your opinion on that. I usually just quench my tools to harden them myself because store bought item like planer blade or chisel are poor quality steel.
What you’re thinking of is called carberizing (probably misspelled)
Anyway, it’s similar to the way blister steel used to be made, utilizing the phenomenon of carbon migration you can take a piece of iron or mild steel, pack it in an airtight container with a carbon source and bake it at a high temperature for a long period of time and the carbon will defuse into the steel, similar concept to case hardening.
@@OldHickoryForge thanks for the keywords. Found some lecture about pack carburising or carburizing...they got lots of different spellings for the term.
Recently shopping at the store for farming tools. The made in china sickles are useless. Tested with a kitchen knife on the same shelf it could cut about ¼ of an inch into the sickle edge.
I miss the days I could visit the stall of our local iron monger at the farmers market. Quite pricey but you get what you paid for....an heirloom piece. Now with a second round of quarantine it's difficult to get good tools.
Was this lump charcoal? Or some other kind?
BoucherWag _77 yeah just hardwood lump charcoal.
Make more attempts, you'll get it right 👍👌
should check out penray. if you think provos was in depth. a farrier making swords for princes and kings. I don't know how much his knives cost. you did all right . listening to yr method and approach you were close.
Not a fail if you learn, you do have a piece of steel. Period.
What's the recipe you are using