have any of you heard of a welding compound called Z weld?

any additional info on it appreciated.

Thanks, Angus

Z Weld is sold by Larry Zoeller. I've never used it. Larry has some interesting material on his site. Hope he doesn't mind me attaching his link to this post. Zoeller Forge

......found this to be an extremely interesting read.......any recent news to add ? Kero or WD40 or nothing at all success stories , how to's ??

is there a 'bareback' vid or tutorial how to follow along somewhere ?

thanks

Rob

much more info can be found in this thread. http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/index.php?/topic/1361-dry-forge-welding-damascus-without-flux-or-kerosene-topic-for-december-2013/

I have done a lot of experimenting with the bare back welding and have found it to be some of the strongest welds I have ever gotten. In my NESM seax class I demoed setting the weld (under the power hammer) and drawing the billet from 1 1/4 sq ish to 3/8" /1 1/4" on the Bias for crushed W's in one heat! my feeling is and I would like to do some experiments to confirm or refute this, is that the oil welds will give the same result with slightly less Decarb along the welds, the bare back welds do have a some what significant amount of decarb but it is hard to notice as at those temps carbon migration is so fast the bar will ready homogenize before being noticed.

MP

|quoted:

much more info can be found in this thread. http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/index.php?/topic/1361-dry-forge-welding-damascus-without-flux-or-kerosene-topic-for-december-2013/

I have done a lot of experimenting with the bare back welding and have found it to be some of the strongest welds I have ever gotten. In my NESM seax class I demoed setting the weld (under the power hammer) and drawing the billet from 1 1/4 sq ish to 3/8" /1 1/4" on the Bias for crushed W's in one heat! my feeling is and I would like to do some experiments to confirm or refute this, is that the oil welds will give the same result with slightly less Decarb along the welds, the bare back welds do have a some what significant amount of decarb but it is hard to notice as at those temps carbon migration is so fast the bar will ready homogenize before being noticed.

MP

thanks Matt , thats a good read

Hello everyone, After reading this thread and several others on this subject I decided to give it a try. I just came in from the shop after welding up 2 billets,they were both soaked overnight in solvent from a parts washer, welded up verry niceley and didnt get burned by any flying borax. The billets were 1/8" thick layers of 1084/15n20 for a total of 29 layers 1 1/2" wide and 8" long and heated in a 2 burner venturi type forge. I will keep some borax around for other projects but I will use this soaking method on my billets. Landon

|quoted:

Hello everyone, After reading this thread and several others on this subject I decided to give it a try. I just came in from the shop after welding up 2 billets,they were both soaked overnight in solvent from a parts washer, welded up verry niceley and didnt get burned by any flying borax. The billets were 1/8" thick layers of 1084/15n20 for a total of 29 layers 1 1/2" wide and 8" long and heated in a 2 burner venturi type forge. I will keep some borax around for other projects but I will use this soaking method on my billets. Landon

The key to success is controlling the forge temperature. Buy a thermocouple and temp reader and keep your forge btw 2315-2325 when you weld. Let the steel soak for 5-10 mins at temp, then weld. Repeat, then hammer away. It's pretty much fool proof. You really don't need to soak or clean the steel. Try it!

After the initial weld it's important to grind the forge scale before proceeding.

John

I see everyone here is working in gas with thermocouples. I'm going to give this a shot in a Coke Forge this week by eye. I'll post results when I have them.