Fredeen Blades

How do I pattern weld in a coal forge? all i've seen on youtube and read about is it being done in a gas forge. I don't have a gas forge but i do have one kick butt coal forge. 55 gallon drum filled 75% with koalin clay, v shaped twier and capped with koalin so basicly it looks like a modified bread oven. Air is supplied by an adjustable power vacuem/blower and also what are the possibilities of pattern welding re-bar as i have a good bit of it??

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Forge welding in a coal forge will be done using pretty much the same techniques as with a gas forge, the only difference being how you heat the billet. Gas forges are much more common for pattern welding than a coal forge because they are a bit easier to weld in. You can easily see when the billet is up to heat, you have a lot of control over the atmosphere within the forge , and you don't have alot of the potential contaminates like with a coal forge. However, there are still quite a few folks that weld in coal/charcoal forges.

The important thing and most tricky step is building the right type of fire, and proper fire management (something you don't have to worry with in a gasser). What you want to form is a "beehive" fire for forge welding. Basically as you get your fire going nice and hot, you'll add wetted coal to form a mound. The wet coal will stick together and form a hard outer shell, while the inner will burn down to coke and give you a nice hot fire inside for welding in. Once you get a sufficient mound, you poke a hole in the front to stick your billet in, and allow you to have some viewing access. Then its just a mater of knowing when and how much air is needed to provide the right heat, without causing excess oxidation.

The rest of the steps with fluxing, heating, and the actual welding procedure will pretty much be the same.

As far as rebar, I would recommend not trying to use it for pattern welding. The majority of rebar is all recycled steel of varring quality (in other words its mostly junk) and it doesn't have very strict tollerances in terms of its composition. If you are wanting to use it in a blade, its  not going to heat treat very well and you will have serious performance issues. And since the rebar is made of recycled steel and doesn't have very much in terms of tollerances, what you get in one bar will probably differ greatly from that of another bar (unless everything you have came from the exact same melt, which is unlikely). Also, being round in nature, its not really in the right shape to do much with, without forging down (can't really stack it with other materials very effectivly). And with the time, fuel, and effort it would take to make it into barstock, you could have gotten some better known steel that would perform correctly. Basically when it comes to rebar, I would say steer clear of it.

Now rebar does have alot of uses when forging however. You can make tongs out of some of the thicker stuff, and I use a ton of it as handles you weld on for working billets and blades in the forge to prevent the need for tongs. It can also make other good tools/hooks/watever you can think of. Its just not good for blades, and not really suited for pattern welding in general, even if you aren't going to use it as a blade.

thank you thank you! I din't know about the "beehive" thing.  i'm using the rebar to practice my hammer strokes and such. i got in some mild steel and good tool steel plate today. i just started the blacksmthing about 2 weeks ago. I've made shark gigs from the rebar and a "fagget?" welded camping hatchet flat end to flat end from some larger 2 inch wide stock nothing to brag about. ugly as all get out but i'm getting better.  I got another question for ya, what is the proper coal, i've got plenty i mean plenty of wood that i've been burning down for charcoal will this suffice for the better steels cause i can sometimes melt the steel that ive got and sometimes barely get it yellow. will my forge work well with the top covered with koilin clay? i can fit 2 2 litre bottles in the horizontle hole... i'll put up some pics of it if i can

Charcoal will work quite well for both forging and forge welding. There are lots of folks that use it. I'm not an expert when it comes to coal/charcoal forges, but I have heard from a few folks that soft woods like pine tend to produce charcoal that burns a bit more completly and a bit hotter. If you were to switch to actual coal, you'd need bituminous coal, which is the softer stuff. Anthricite (the hard coal) has high sulfer content that is not good for forging and especially not forge welding.

When forge welding, you really only need to get the steel up to about 2200°F maximum. The higher the carbon content, the lower the welding temps. This will probably be a bright yellow in color. However based on differences in lighting, the steel can appear different, so judging temperatures by eye is not a very accurate way of doing things.

I'm not really sure how well your forge will work without being able to see it. I have no way of knowing if I'm envisioning things correctly or not based on descriptions. The typical coal forge consists of really only a few major components, being a fire pot, tuyere, and blower. It is not typically desireable to have the top of the fire covered in the coal forge to try to capture heat, since it works on a different principle than a gas forge. A gas forge must have insulation to keep the heat from the burners inside the forge. With a coal forge, the pile of coal and the fire insulates itself, so to speak, and the method of heat generation differs. Air flow is very important in a coal forge, so doing things that could disrupt it could be problematic. I would recommend modeling your forge off something like the brake drum forge or something similar. Build a nice deep fire pot, maybe 3-4" deep, maybe 6" or so in diameter. Put it into some sort of table/stand and then attach all of the necessary plumbing for the blower and you should have a forge that will work great. If your current setup can get hot enough to burn steel (melting and sparking) then it probably works sufficiently.

Something to remember with a coal forge, its not so much about how you design and build the forge that is important, its how you build your fires and how you manage them that produces the correct working environment for the steel.