Found a way to stop my forge welding scale issues

Was having constant scale flaking into my welds on a damascus billet last month. Tried a borax mix like everyone says but what actually fixed it was adding a thin layer of anhydrous borax on top of the regular stuff. Has anyone else experimented with different flux combos for high carbon steels?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_matthew9d ago

Hey have you tried mixing in some iron powder with your flux? Buddy of mine was having the exact same problem on a 1095/15n20 stack and he started sprinkling a little fine iron filings from his grinder into his borax mix. Said it helped the flux stick better and pulled the scale out before it could settle into the welds. He also switched to a torch instead of his forge for the first couple heats to keep things cleaner.

kelly3859d ago

Oh man, you just nailed it with that iron powder trick. I found the same thing by accident last year when I was working on a 1084/15n20 billet and had a pile of grinder dust sitting right next to my flux. I sprinkled a little on top of my borax and it was like night and day - that scale just bubbled right up and floated out instead of sinking into the weld. I started keeping a little jar of the stuff by my forge ever since. What kind of torch setup does your buddy use for those first heats? I tried a standard propane torch but it wasn't hot enough for my 1 inch thick stack, had to go to an oxy-acetylene to really get the job done right.