Welding "Pure" Iron

Date 10-28-2008 22:37

I have seen people that "hunt" for meteorites. One guy, I think in AZ or NM flys an ultralight in the desert to look for these. He then cuts them into thin sections and sells them from several hundred to several thousand dollars for small slices. I have also heard that the right, what ever that is, can go for $10,000/pound. That could possibly buy you some damn nice steel IMHO

By PlasmaHead2 (***)

Date 10-28-2008 22:50

The "right" meteorite is something called a palasaideite *sp?*. It's a mostly iron meteorite but it has pockets of olivine in it. When their cut thin enough the olivine is transparent.
Really rare though.

By BryonLewis (****)

Date 10-28-2008 23:33

I guess that is not the type you have? Damn it.

By DaveBoyer (*****)

Date 10-29-2008 02:59

Clif: You should ask this question on anvilfire.com Guru's den or on forgemagic.com or some of the better knifemaking forums. HOWEVER don't use the phrase "pure iron" as that is a particular iron product from England. What You have is meteric iron, some folks on the mentioned forums have played with it. They will have most likely forge welded it, this is solid state welding the way blacksmiths have done it for thousands of years.

By TimGary (****)

Date 10-29-2008 13:11

I was at the Smoky Mountains Knife Works in Sevierville, TN a couple years ago. It's a giant knife and accessories super store, kind of like a Bass Pro Shop. Anyway, they had a knife in a display case made from a slice of a meteorite. The sharpened edge was solid metal of a dull silver and the back edge was porous, from the burnt, exposed surface. The blade was shaped as a drop point and was about 6" long. A handle had been fashioned of silver, turquois and antler bands. It was a beautiful piece of art with a $5000 price tag. I almost tried to sell my car in the parking lot, just so I could buy the darn thing, but my wife wouldn't let me...
Do you think your meteorite is solid enough to slice into knife blades?
Dave Boyer's advice sounds best to me.

Tim

By PlasmaHead2 (***)

Date 10-30-2008 22:05

Dave,
Thank you for the heads up with the "pure iron", ill have to go poke around some of the forge sites when I get a chance.

Tim,
Yeah the chunks dad has are quite solid, ill have to see about getting one cut into a blade :)

By RBeldyk (**)

Date 10-29-2008 12:47

Welding Pure Iron.

If you can get you hand on some old Wrought Iron, not the stuff that is sold today by manufactureed before 1910. True wrought iron is layers of pure iron and sandwiched betwqeen layers of slag. when clean and polished looks like plywood. Fairly easy to weld, use an austentic stainless steel filler like 308L or 309L; watch out for porosity.

I would expect the welding on the meteorite to be similar

By PlasmaHead2 (***)

Date 10-30-2008 22:13

RBeldyk,
I dont know about finding any old wrought iron, ill keep my eyes open.

Just out of curiosity, why would you use a stainless filler metal? I can't wrap my head around the how and why of that one, but I appreciate the advice :)

By RBeldyk (**)

Date 10-30-2008 22:58

Pure iron does not rust like carbon steel, it is passive while the carbon steel is active. a 7018 weld on wrought iron will corrode very rapidly while an Austentic stainless steel weld will not corrode.

By Metarinka (****)

Date 10-31-2008 17:28

Just to add wrought iron is passive because of the slag inclusions, similar to say corten steel. The wrought iron will corrode until a layer of slag is reached and then it will remain. Many old gates, door handles and fences throughout europe are wrought iron dating back over 100 years and it still has not rusted away.

I knew a welder who made decorative gates etc and you still can buy "real" wrought iron from a few specialty mills left in the country. I always heard to use austenitic stainless fillers or braze it.

I could be completely off base but I was under the impression that austentic stainless steeks are more capable of handling the silica slag inclusions and are less likely to fom inclusions or porosity themselves. I know tig welders have been known to use 308 or 309 filler on pipes to rid porosity and there was a rather infamous thread about that http://www.aws.org/cgi-bin/mwf/topic_show.pl?tid=13901;pg=1 I believe this was due to the mechanic of the metallurgy and the ability to hold the inclusions in the grain structure. Anyone care to shed light on how this works?

a quick look at a phase change diagram will show you that at extremely low levels of carbon it will form alpha ferrite off the top of my head. I can't remember much but off the top of my head pure iron (which as far as I know isn't used for anything) is welded readily.

By RBeldyk (**)

Date 10-31-2008 20:20

As the molten iron cools to a solid the slag is still molten, wicking over the surface of the wrought iron forming a very thin clear layer of slag (glass) protecting the surface.

By PlasmaHead2 (***)

Date 11-02-2008 16:23

Well, the meteorites dont have any slag to them and they rust away quite readily.
If the reason to use a stainless for wrought iron is so that the weld its self dont rust away while the base metal stays, then it wolnt have much of an effect for what im doing with it.

Thank you all
-clif

By DaveBoyer (*****)

Date 11-01-2008 03:49

The pure iron I mentioned is expensive when compaired to ordinary hot rolled steel, but some artist blacksmiths use it because it forges easily. Depending on what they are trying to do, I guess there are aplications that warrent the cost. This product is like real wrought iron without the slag inclusions.

By jwright650 (*****)

Date 10-29-2008 15:35

I don't have anything to add, but this thread is interesting.....