Time to fire up the forge and try Forge Welding

Its been a while since I've done some forging and even longer since I've posted anything, so I think its well past time to do something. Since the weather has been quite nice for the last few weeks its given me time to clear out some room around my forge and anvil to make room for more projects. Lately I've been reading up and watching youtube videos about Forge Welding steels. I'd love to do some blades with layered hard and soft steel as well as other things. So, before I jump into that I wanted to do something basic. So I found some steels and cut out about 7 similar sized peices of each. The thickness of these steels were about 1/8" or so. Then I cleaned them up to remove rust and paint. Since this was a practice run I used two peices of the soft steel layered over some high carbon spring steel.

I wrapped the stack with some stainless wire and hoped it would hold long enough. I do have a wire fed welder which was given to me, but I don't have enough power in the garage to run it yet. So I'm hoping the wire will keep the stack together and I'll just have to use tongs to handle it. 

I tried to get the wire fairly tight, but it started to snap off when I twisted it real tight, so like I said, this is the "test piece". 

Next I got it to a nice orange heat. I flipped it a few times to make sure the peice was heated evenly. This was about the time the wires burned off. So I made sure to handle the stack carefully when I moved it.  I pulled it out a couple times to make sure I got enough Borax on it and then got it to a yellow heat. This was some guess work, but I think I got to the right temp, or close enought. So once I got to yellow I pulled it out and just tacked it together with some easy hits with the hammer. It let out a good deal of sparks so I think the temp was right. Just a note - make sure to wear protection from the sparks!  They go everywhere!

 After a few more heats to a nice yellow and some stronger hits with the 3# sledge the stack looked and felt like it was welded together. This pic you can still see the layers, but once it cools I'll grind the edge and have a look inside more. At this point I'm feeling pretty happy with it. 

 

Here is a look at the layers. You can still see the layers of metal, but I don't see any gaps from this edge anyhow. So, I'm pretty happy how it turned out. The next question is what do I do with it? I may keep working it and folding it and see if I can make a blade from it. It will be alot of work without a power hammer, but I'll learn a lot more and it will be more satisfying too.