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A weird forge weld took me three full days to figure out
I was trying to forge weld a simple twist bar for a gate handle, something I've done a dozen times. My usual mix of borax and a clean fire just wasn't working; the steel would look ready but crumble apart under the hammer. I spent a whole Saturday checking my coal bed, adjusting the air, and cleaning the metal, thinking it was a simple flux issue. On Sunday, I finally called an old smith friend in Knoxville who asked, 'Is your coal fresh or did you get a new bag?' Turns out, the new bag of coal I bought had a high sulfur content, which I never even thought to check. It was poisoning the weld at the critical temperature. I had to drive an hour to get a different brand, start the whole fire over, and it finally took on the third attempt Monday evening. Has anyone else run into bad coal batches causing weld failures?
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henry_williams637mo ago
Wait, you can just... buy coal with too much sulfur in it? That's wild.
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beth7196mo ago
Seriously, some factories just don't care.
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jessicab707mo ago
Right? It's like buying milk you know is already sour. They have to label it, but someone still takes it home. I saw a listing once that straight up said "high sulfur, not for home heating." Who's buying that? What are they doing with it?
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