Bob Geldart 0 Posted April 28, 2009 Share Posted April 28, 2009 One of the 'benefits' of having your own drill press/lathe/mill etc is the endless supply of swarf in all shapes and sizes. I had a few pounds of curly steel on the shop floor and wanted to find a use for it. I have used it for reinforcing concrete but as I didn't have any building projects underway I needed to find a new way of disposing of it. Here's some swarf: As it's mainly mild steel I needed to add some carbon, hopefully this is carbon in my chimney: Add a slack handful of carbon to a scoop of swarf: Fill a sterile heat resistant container with the mixture and then compact with my patent compacting device: Seal the container: And apply heat: Remove from heat and hit with a hammer: Apply more heat then hit with a powerhammer: Repeat previous step: Remove outer container and shape billet with hammer: Shape further under the powerhammer, grind it flat and hey presto, your swarf is a block of steel again! But is it mild steel, carbon steel or cast iron? I quenched the billet in water, placed it in a vice and hit it with a hammer and it snapped cleanly. So a bean tin full mild steel swarf + a slack handfull of black stuff out of the flue + heat + pressure = carbon steel. Link to post Share on other sites
dragoncutlery 45 Posted April 28, 2009 Share Posted April 28, 2009 wow Link to post Share on other sites
Clint h. 0 Posted April 28, 2009 Share Posted April 28, 2009 nice job! looks good quality. but I don't know. Link to post Share on other sites
dragoncutlery 45 Posted April 28, 2009 Share Posted April 28, 2009 just wow Link to post Share on other sites
GEzell 136 Posted April 29, 2009 Share Posted April 29, 2009 I love the sterile, heat resistant container, and the compacting devise. Did you fold it before the last image? Looks like its been folded a few times.... I have a pile of little cut-offs from ends of tangs and general screw-ups, might have to give this a try. Link to post Share on other sites
Bob Geldart 0 Posted April 29, 2009 Author Share Posted April 29, 2009 Did you fold it before the last image? Looks like its been folded a few times.... No folding, I just forged the billet under the powerhammer. Link to post Share on other sites
cwilliams 0 Posted April 29, 2009 Share Posted April 29, 2009 Awesome, would love to see if that etches out into something interesting. You need to keep us posted if you make a knife out of this billet. Chris Link to post Share on other sites
Greg Thomas Obach 3 Posted April 29, 2009 Share Posted April 29, 2009 Waste not... ultra cool... did that ever weld up... ... ! i tried doin that with a motor bike chain... just went to hell on me.. the hole didn't weld up so good... but all i had was hand hammers and noodle arms.. G Link to post Share on other sites
blacklionforge 0 Posted April 29, 2009 Share Posted April 29, 2009 great idea!!!! wanna see pics of the etch please... Link to post Share on other sites
Richard van Dijk 202 Posted April 29, 2009 Share Posted April 29, 2009 That is great to see, I have also used it together with cut offs butnot for a cutting edge, it worked great, try it with some stainless swarf in there as well I have seen some amazing results. Always been looking at all the grinding dust each time I sweep up, there is hell of a lot of magnetic stuff and I have been saving some of it just for that purpose. Richard Link to post Share on other sites
Dee 1 Posted April 30, 2009 Share Posted April 30, 2009 thats great. love it when the simple pays off Link to post Share on other sites
David D. 0 Posted April 30, 2009 Share Posted April 30, 2009 That is pretty freaking genius!... Link to post Share on other sites
Walter Sorrells 15 Posted April 30, 2009 Share Posted April 30, 2009 I just ordered a lathe the other day. And as soon as I started thinking about what I was going to do with it, the whole swarfmascus thing popped into my mind, too. Except I like to thing of it as swarfahagane! Make sure you post a shot of how it etches out... That is pretty freaking genius!... Link to post Share on other sites
WES 4 Posted April 30, 2009 Share Posted April 30, 2009 (edited) Great Idea! Actually, I'd been thinking along those same lines for awhile now but have never taken the initiative, but my plan was to take the grindings from my cooling bucket (a five gallon plastic bucket),placed under the grinder. every few months or so (unless I drop somthing and have to go fishing for it), I'll take a big magnet on a wire and pull up literally pounds and pounds of fine metal grindings, nearly all high carbon from the knives I make, and I generally toss them out, but I'd been thinking lately that it would be cool to recycle this stuff in the same way, maybe even adding some 1095 metal powder to the mix, and see what happens, and now seeing this thread I believe I'll give it a try. If anything it will etch and make good looking guards and buttcaps. Wes Edited April 30, 2009 by WES Link to post Share on other sites
Giuseppe Maresca 0 Posted April 30, 2009 Share Posted April 30, 2009 that is unbeliaveble. I'm curious to see how does it look when etched. I tried once with grinding dust, but I think that it was mostly iron oxide (and some corundum maybe). The result was similar to Ferodo, the stuff used for brakes, extremely hard and wear resistant, but very different from steel. Link to post Share on other sites
Eric 0 Posted May 1, 2009 Share Posted May 1, 2009 Hi. This is amazing. It definitely looks like an interesting alternative methodology for backyard steel making which is competitive with blister steel. Actually, blister steel is too labor and energy intensive. How does the spark test look? Link to post Share on other sites
MJDForge 0 Posted May 20, 2009 Share Posted May 20, 2009 Wow. Just wow. Link to post Share on other sites
Brian Madigan 17 Posted May 20, 2009 Share Posted May 20, 2009 I gotta agree with Walter. swarfahagane! Link to post Share on other sites
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