In my early thirties, making knives, living off grid and learning to forge with the guidance of Alexander Weygers’s book , The Modern Blacksmith. There is no mention of fire-welding in the text and my attempts were 50/50 hit ‘n miss. Then in 1990 , in Tasmania, I approached a blacksmith and world class Farrier in Nichole’s Rivulet, Dominique Fletcher, who told me I was being too particular and then demonstrated his technique.

This is pretty much it and I never had a problem again.

FIRE WELDING IN A COKE FORGE

Your fire needs to be fresh, deep and hot and free of clinker, using as little draft as you can to achieve temperature. A deep fire that has burned off the oxygen before it gets to your work, situated snugly in the coals high in the fire.(this is to have a reducing heat, ie minimal oxygen)

The pieces to be welded should be properly scarfed prior to welding.this means, shaped so as when brought together they will squeeze out any flux between them when hammered .. (convex surfaces coming together under your hammer)

Bring the pieces to be welded up to a bright orange heat.. quickly take them out and wire brush the scarfs to remove all fire-scale (oxidised metal)while immediately liberally sprinkling borax powder on the work.. then back into the fire.(this is done very quickly as the flux has melted to form a shield of glass, excluding  oxygen from the surfaces… Then increasing your draft, bring the surfaces to to be joined up to a pretty much white heat.. where the surfaces of the scarfs are melting.(you can test the readiness of the surfaces by touching the fine sharp point of your poker/prod to them and if it sticks, Go! .. alternately, at the first sign of sparks, Go!)

You will develop an eye for it.. that white-hot surface melt.

Caveat! I’m 74 years old.. have early onset macular degeneration..and a macular hole condition.. surgery soon.. so perhaps use infrared etc shielding glasses .. available for glass bead making. (?)

Then working very fast.. in one move, bring the two pieces together while smacking them,  forcefully onto the anvil and GENTLY settling them together with a couple of light hammer blows.. squeezing the molten flux and any oxides out from the sides of the scarfing and simultaneously tacking the weld together.(the gently bit is because the surfaces are liquid and slippery and the work extremely malleable under such high temperature and so you want to avoid as much slippage and distortion as possible…and then still in all in the same move , return the work to the fire. (You can also re brush and flux In that same move, however that isn’t always necessary).. Now bring the work to welding heat again and return to the anvil to firm down the join and dress it to shape with your hammmer.

That is pretty much it.. The massive spark showers that you see in pictures of blacksmiths working, is the molten flux and iron being expelled from the scarfed joint .. essential because you can’t have the borax flux getting trapped between the surfaces to be welded and thus having the join not fuse and consequently fail.

You will get probably two and at most three welds from your fire before you will need to shut the draft, let it cool and let the clinker settle and harden before discarding it and resetting your fire before continuing.

(Clinker, cursed be its name!, are silica and impurities in the coke, melting out, creating a sticky mess of your fire… also, always keep an eye on the fire just below your work when welding.. you will see a dark, cold spot that is clinker that doesn’t burn and glow.. indicating that you have cold oxygen hitting and oxidising  your work.. Remake your fire).

THE BLACKSMITH’S FIRE..

Down through the years, Individual blacksmiths have shared there own acquired knowledge all sorts of techniques for various processes.. fire welding, hardening, tempering, forging a square bend..the list is very long with many tangents and forays into what borders on the magical arts (what isn’t understood is attributed to magic and may require the  petitioning of relevant Gods).

All said then, there are steps taken to achieve various ends and they may become fixed and evolve into rituals, and then gods forbid that you transgress, or you might earn the dreaded shake-of-the-head of the visiting master smith.

So, without trepidation, confident in my magical arts, I hereby describe, in plain language….

THE ART OF THE BLACKSMITH’S FIRE 

Taking 6’ x 2 1/2” diameter round section of tree branch, place it upright on the tyeure, (this is the grate on the bottom of the fire through which the air is forced, and using a good bituminous coal, pea-sized to jellybean.. firmly packed around this plug of wood to nearly the height of it and extending around it to at least a 10” diameter.. dampen all with a tin can (beans or apricot jam) sprinkler,(14 holes in the bottom) on a decently long handle of iron, with water from your slack-tub or barrel.. packing firmly all the while, using your a slice.. (a heavy, 5” x 5”x 1/4, sharpened, square iron shovel head, fire-welded to a yard-long, iron handle with a circular hand grip).

Next.. remove the wooden plug and kindle a fire in the (magical) space revealed, with crumpled paper, (preferably from some Murdoch rag, pilfered from a café table, preventing any ignorant gitt from reading it).. adding some thin sticks and or wood shavings and ignite.

Once this little fire has caught, ..from the previous day’s saved charcoal, add a couple of handfuls and proceed to boil your billy for your cup of tea. 

Next, cup of tea in hand, scribble your intended design, 1:1 scale, for the work intended, on the floor beside the anvil, with chalk, all the while adding a little more charcoal and placing the iron for your intended project. on the heat…

The rest, then, is another story and a gorgons knot of equal parts of invention, lies, concentration and mighty effort, woven skilfully into a forged  fabrication.

The dampened coal prevents the bituminous coal from smoking too much and allows it to fuse (magically) with itself , while undergoing the process of “coking” and forming a solid do-nut shaped ring around your fire. It is important to keep dampening the coal/coke, all the while adding the previous day’s saved coke to the central fire to facilitate heating your progressing forged project. 

Now.. at tea time or lunch.. shut down the draft, allow the fire to cool sufficiently to lift out the cooked, coked donut, (that has grown the full 10” diameter) and break this up for your afternoon’s fuel.. remake your fire then, while eating your cheese and bringel (?,eggplant or aubergine) pickle sandwich and boiling your Billy…while sitting on your anvil and staring around in a satisfied manner.

At days end.. shut down your fire..remove and put aside the fresh coked donut till the morrow.. complete whatever hammer and anvil tapping ritual you have to perform to satisfy your mild and wryly amusing OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). Mine is a short tune, tapped out on the anvil with two hammers and a florish.

Go home. (or drink beer etc with workshop buddies, then go home). 

Next.. preparing the fire for fire-welding.. making a reduced atmosphere oven on the fire, using coal.

Ages ago when I was looking for a second hand power hammer in Tasmania. My add was answered by a guy with a little steam engine who reckoned I could convert it to a hammer👀.. so I bought the great big lump and called a friend Matt Herne, a steam engine buff, an amateur engineer, professional artist, blacksmith and musician (teaches banjo now!) .

Matt was appalled at the thought of messing with what he ascertained was a small marine engine…He offered to swap and build me one with the couple of grand $ that I’d acquired as a grant for a power hammer… I’d ruined my elbow and wrist tendons by this stage and that was just-cause for the Arts grant, bless their socks! (TasArts).

He billeted me at his place up in the north of the state and over 15 days we built two mechanical “drop hammers” that he designed. Out of scrap machine parts … He did the thinking and the machining of the bearings etc .. I did all the “cut, shutt and weld monkey work and then we powered mine with an old 3phase motor that the 80 year old retired aircraft mechanic Matt was friends with gave us, after he converted it to a 1 horse power (from three).. with a, literal, box (wood)of tricks on top of it with a bloody great capacitor and a bunch of wires.. 

I later converted it to use 2 car shock absorbers attached to the drive and the slide hammer.. and then later still, I had a spring making company in Hobart, make me a spring and so it eventually became a pretty standard traditional blacksmith’s spring hammer !

I don’t know what happened to the little steam engine.. but I’ve no doubt it’s powering a little boat now.

.. I called it, the mechanical hammer,  “JOHN HENERY” after Hoyt Axton’s version of the song… 

FIGJAM‼️????

Core casting method for rings, Using transfer punches
1/2” – 1” diameter. (The problem with using sodium silicate, greensand, CO2 hardened extruded cores for core casting rings has always, for me, been finding suitable, inside diameter graduated tubes for a wide range of ring sizes for extruding the cores).
I have solved this problem by using short sections of steel rod acquired from a 33 piece set of Transfer Punches ranging from 1/2” – 1” diameter in 1/64” increments.
I cut off a short section of the size punch that has a comfortable, close fit to the inside diameter of the ring master that I need to core-cast.. that then fits comfortably inside my sand-casting boxes. (Cope and drag). I pack the drag box and press/hammer the ring master and steel core in place (half way)..then place and pack the cope.. remove the ring from the steel core and wrap the core with a layer of paper.. replace .. create vents, the sprue hole and funnel on the cope and pour the metal..SoHah❗️ I drive the core out by suspending the ring above the open, aluminium Protected jaws of a machinist bench vise. HeyPresto‼️POW‼️Core casting made simple. #figjam #corecast #sandcasting #sandcastjewellery #redclay #craigdabler #delftclay #greensand @brucepringlemetal #iteach (see my website on my profile for class details)

This is gRALPH‼️.. a grumpy wee dog..

sandcast in various custom bronzes and brasses.

it’s a little brooch.. good on a winter coat and/or your favourite hat!

In the interests of playfulness and not taking things too seriously… being somewhat weary, after some Fifty-odd years of making works and the economic prerogative… I’m trying to hold onto this practice as gently as I can!.. So a new collection is taking shape and landing in the two Hammer and Hand Metal Collective’s , here in Bangalow, NSW and in the Salamanca Arts Centre Hobart Tasmania.

I seem somehow to have been indulging my love for brooches over the last year.. making, almost exclusively, smallish sand castings .. for sale of course.. but I suspect mostly for my pleasure…. Stuff that I’d wear! (and Do!). .. so the little miniature sculptures are a welcome diversion. ????

Take a look at them in the GALLERY..

”Who will be an emissary to speak to the seasons, for the blackbirds and crows already soak up the sky” Juluka.

‘Working in wax on this small scale is still difficult for me.  I like the blue wax! It allows filing and cutting.. the trade off is that it is very brittle. These hands and wheels are for one of  a series of small sculptures on the theme “The Emissary “

The small sintered deposit of casting sand in the palm of one hand was interesting in light of the subject.

this piece will probably be fabricated from sand cast bronze elements.

It seems a simple task but it starts with melting fine (pure) silver and adding 75 parts in a thousand of copper in order to make the alloy, Sterling Silver 925…. Then the poured ingots are rolled in a rolling mill where they are squeezed into thinner and thinner square bars till they can fit into the graduated round holes of a draw plate where they are drawn into round wire. The rolling and drawing process requires that the metal be annealed (softened by heating to almost red-hot), as the rolling and drawing process work hardens the metal and makes it impossible to work any further’ without it becoming brittle and cracking.

‘Then the chain making can begin! The wire is wrapped around an especially shaped mandrel to form a continuous coil that is then cut with the jewellers saw to make the individual links.

‘The links are joined together and each link fluxed and soldered and finally the catch is made and the chain polished and patina induced with liver of sulpher and polished again…. 
Some are charm chains/bracelets and the charm masters are made , sand cast and linked onto the chains. All in all a very time consuming project and should only ever be undertaken by someone such as myself, who loves the process and would not hav it any other way! It’s why I’m a Metalsmith!