When I first started smithing back in... um... oh, a few years ago, most of the material I found was reinforcing rod, so that's what I used. And some of it was crap. Apparently it had too much sulfur in it and that made it red-short. And that got pretty disappointing on occasion.
Tonight I played with some re-bar I picked up the other day. I was inspired by an article in the ABANA publication: The Hammer's Blow, wherein the author wrote of the different grades of re-bar and how it isn't necessarily crap and people oughta give it a try.
I made an S-hook, and left the re-bar texture untouched in the middle, 'cause I wondered what it would look like with a good twist on it. It's... interesting.
It has markings on it, I can't read the first one, it's very blocky though, the second character is a '4' and the third is either an 'S' or a '5'. I worked it at all ranges of temperature and it behaved rather like mild steel. I even managed a simple forge weld in it (once I got the clinker out of the fire). It's on its way to being a very big spoon.
Tonight I played with some re-bar I picked up the other day. I was inspired by an article in the ABANA publication: The Hammer's Blow, wherein the author wrote of the different grades of re-bar and how it isn't necessarily crap and people oughta give it a try.
I made an S-hook, and left the re-bar texture untouched in the middle, 'cause I wondered what it would look like with a good twist on it. It's... interesting.
It has markings on it, I can't read the first one, it's very blocky though, the second character is a '4' and the third is either an 'S' or a '5'. I worked it at all ranges of temperature and it behaved rather like mild steel. I even managed a simple forge weld in it (once I got the clinker out of the fire). It's on its way to being a very big spoon.
Does the spark tell you anything about the alloy?
a
Hmmm... I haven't tested. Just a minute...
... it sparks a lot like mild steel