anyone into metallurgy? as a hobby?? for work?

just curious here....i have been into metallurgy for a few years cause of work.

was wondering if there were any other metal workers here.....any hobbyists?

anyone do any forging?

a reply to: Grovit
I've worked many years in metal fabrication.
Do you have any specific questions?

originally posted by: skunkape23
a reply to: Grovit
I've worked many years in metal fabrication.
Do you have any specific questions?

no...was just wondering if anyone was into it for a job or a hobby...
im sure as people post questions will come up

One of the more complex tasks that I have performed on a regular basis involved welding hastelloy nozzles to stainless stems.
Not many people know how to do it without cracking the hastelloy.
It has to be slowly preheated to a certain temperature and then packed in insulation to allow the weld to cool slowly.
It is an expensive mistake if everything isn't done just right.

I work in a forge shop. Nothing fancy, just making hand tools. Learning the heat treat side now

originally posted by: skunkape23
One of the more complex tasks that I have performed on a regular basis involved welding hastelloy nozzles to stainless stems.
Not many people know how to do it without cracking the hastelloy.
It has to be slowly preheated to a certain temperature and then packed in insulation to allow the weld to cool slowly.
It is an expensive mistake if everything isn't done just right.

I know about Hasteloy C, when I was regional engineer for a large instrumentation company I had to have probes made for a waste incinerator that had to handle hydrochloric acid vapour at about 1000 degrees C. It was the only metal I could find at the time to turn the trick, but as you said, expensive as hell. I was actually left with about 10 pounds of the material and had a very expensive ashtray milled out of it, 9 carbide blades and 3 lapping blades later.

Chemistry and metallurgy can be fun!

Cheers - Dave

You want to have fun with metallurgy? Get a hold of a magnesium engine block from an old VW and throw it on a bonfire. Tell everyone to stand back.

originally posted by: skunkape23
You want to have fun with metallurgy? Get a hold of a magnesium engine block from an old VW and throw it on a bonfire. Tell everyone to stand back.

when we threw MG in the ladles it would pop off like 4th of july.

originally posted by: skunkape23
One of the more complex tasks that I have performed on a regular basis involved welding hastelloy nozzles to stainless stems.
Not many people know how to do it without cracking the hastelloy.
It has to be slowly preheated to a certain temperature and then packed in insulation to allow the weld to cool slowly.
sounds like a a similar process we used....chills were placed in the mold so after the iron was poured it would cool evenly....if not you get diffusions
It is an expensive mistake if everything isn't done just right.

i mostly worked with gray iron and ductile iron. i wasnt in the melt but i handled all the chemistry...the quality checks...
of course depending on the job being poured, MG was added to make ductile and then depending on the application of the casting nickel, moly, copper, chrome, etc were added.....

en.wikipedia.org...

The predominant alloying ingredient is typically the transition metal nickel. Other alloying ingredients are added to nickel in each of the subcategories of this trademark designation and include varying percentages of the elements molybdenum, chromium, cobalt, iron, copper, manganese, titanium, zirconium, aluminum, carbon, and tungsten.
-----

what applications are the parts you weld used for?
adding copper will make it very hard.....but then i see carbon is added?? must be a very low percentage of carbon..that will make is prone to cracking....
i never worked with cobalt, titanium, or tungston......

would a ductile iron with copper and maybe chrome work? do you ever use that?
the magnesium would give you the ductility and the copper would harden it up giving you a high tinsile strength.

what material do you use as insulation to let it cool slowly...
im assuming not copper......

edit*
i have to try and crash. maybe we can talk metallurgy tomorrow

originally posted by: Grovit

originally posted by: skunkape23

what applications are the parts you weld used for?

what material do you use as insulation to let it cool slowly...

It's diffusure nozzles for atomizing crude. It goes through the nozzles at high temperature and pressure, atomizes, and then drops through a "cracker." That's basically a vessel with an aroesolized catalyst that separates the various components of the crude.
The preheated, welded parts are then packed in a box with kaowool. I'm giving away trade secrets here.

Building my mk3 foundry, here.
Too late to give details, perhaps I'll find this later and respond with more info.

Mostly looking to reduce aluminum scrap to useful things.

a reply to: skunkape23

thats a cool sounding process....

i wonder if that composition was because the company wanted an alternative to something else or did they develop this because other compositions wouldnt handle it.....

my place uses kaowool for certain applications too.

i wish i still had my pictures from inside that place.
i took a bunch of pictures in the melt shop.....pretty trippy

right after i first started there the melt shop was melting down the quality rejects to be poured again.....the guy was in the crane and picked up a pile and threw it in...one of the castings were wet and it shot out of the furnace and threw the outside wall. landed about 100 feet outside.......

it was like a 400lb bullet

a reply to: PibbinKS

thats cool....i wish i knew more about forging....

we used to heat treat ductile and it would end up with a brinell of about 302

heat treating can also demagnetize

originally posted by: skunkape23
You want to have fun with metallurgy? Get a hold of a magnesium engine block from an old VW and throw it on a bonfire. Tell everyone to stand back.

VW mag block, LOL! Magnesium can be a hoot (I used to put small amounts in .44 and 9P frag rounds along with a bit of phosphorus and Semtex), but then so can thermite/thermate which is very easy to make, nitrogen and/or potassium tri-iodide, even Semtex requires only three compounds, two of which can be a little hard to come by for most. I have the recipe for Cubane around here somewhere, that would be 8 carbon molecules (bound as a cube), with 8 nitrates per carbon molecule (if I remember right), but the "cooking" is difficult and time consuming. Lots of ways to make big bangs, do a little electrolysis and fill a large balloon with hydrogen, tie it off at about 50 feet then fire a flaming arrow through it. Just don't be too close when you light it up, the crack is worse than a shotgun blast next to your ear.

Cheers - Dave