FIRE WELDING - LOSING MY VIRGINITY

 Previously i posted about my first day back and how nothing is quite as it seems in the forge. As luck would have it i was an hour early for our second session.With the forges still blowing and the workshop still being supervised(believe me it needs to be supervised when I'm there), i was able to crack on and get 45 minutes extra forge time.

But the same as last week, simple tasks were still failing me. I thought as a warm up i would make a couple of hooks, then a snail in prep for November. The hooks were swiftly abandoned, the snail was slow.
I think at this point i was seriously demoralised, not to the point of wanting to go home, but seriously pissed off, then the magic happened!

At the start of the class, Richard asked if we would like to do a taught session on Fire Welding. Everybody was well into the idea of a taught session and having some of the myths demystified.

Absolutely brilliant session, with Richard explaining in depth about managing the fire, and the importance of a clean managed fire when Fire Welding.

After our session it was time for us to step up. As a class we all were successful after a couple of attempts, i managed a scarfed Fire Weld of two pieces of 12mm sq. First attempt was a nightmare the second i managed the join with a little help of some Borax.

We made some attempts at bending the material back on itself and Fire Welding to form a thick end., which resulted in one of the class then making a spoon. After a couple of attempts with varying degrees of success i attempted an animal head of unknown species!! As we are learning, the look of the head was unimportant that will come later.

By the end of the session, i think we were all happy, especially myself as my confidence had been restored to pre- christmas levels.

Picture of animal head and scarf Fire Weld - click on picture for larger image.