Forging Fundamentals: Start With Color, Temperature (2024)

FAQs

Forging Fundamentals: Start With Color, Temperature? ›

Hot forging of steel: The forging temperatures are above the recrystallization temperature, and are typically between 950°C–1250°C.

Hot forging of steel: The forging temperatures are above the recrystallization temperature, and are typically between 950°C–1250°C.

Steel in a tempering oven, held at 205 °C (401 °F) for a long time, will begin to turn brown, purple, or blue, even though the temperature did not exceed that needed to produce a light-straw color. Oxidizing or carburizing heat sources may also affect the final result.

However, Lorelei Sims says "forging is most effective when the metal has turned yellow"(2100°F)... while our friend Jim Hrisoulas says that "most of the carbon steels" beginners will use should be worked at "the cherry red range" (1500°-1800°F).

It is the process by heating steel forging blanks above a critical temperature (typically at least 1350 oF) for enough time to transform the microstructure to austenite (a nonmagnetic iron phase). This temperature is held for a predetermined period of time (typically 1 hour per inch of thickness).

Your forge should be heated to a temperature between 1500 and 2000°F, which is the usual range for Damascus steel. Then take the following steps: Put the assembled billet in the forge to be heated. Heat the billet until it becomes bright red.

Bluing may be applied by immersing steel parts in a solution of potassium nitrate, sodium hydroxide, and water heated to the boiling point, 275–310 °F (135–154 °C) depending on the recipe.

Description. Iron or steel, when heated to above 460 °C (900 °F), glows with a red color. The color of heated iron changes predictably (due to black-body radiation) from dull red through orange and yellow to white, and can be a useful indicator of its temperature.

Note: The mild steel forging temperature lies in the range of 750 to 1300 °C. This is the official question of MP Vayapam Sub engineer and the commision has considered 1300 as the correct answer.

Why do blacksmiths heat metal before forging? ›

Throughout forging, blacksmiths use heat treatment techniques to strengthen material and make it easier to work with.

Scrap steel is an easily accessible type of steel, which makes it a great option for beginner blacksmiths looking for practice materials. Steel is a main component of many manufacturing processes, but this means producing lots of scrap steel.

In most cases, forging must be done at a temperature between 800 and 1000ºC, though it can also be carried out at room temperature in a process known as “cold forming.” To eliminate the internal stresses that arise during forging, we also perform a heat treatment called “normalization.”

Explanation: Hot forging is a method of forging articles at an extremely high temperature. But, before putting the article into the hot forging processes, it has to be heated to certain temperatures. The minimum temperature that has to be given to the article should be 200°C.

The cold forging manufacturing process increases the strength of a metal through strain hardening at a room temperature. On the contrary the hot forging manufacturing process keeps materials from strain hardening at high temperature, which results in optimum yield strength, low hardness and high ductility.

Pure iron can be welded when nearly white hot; between 2,500 °F (1,400 °C) and 2,700 °F (1,500 °C). Steel with a carbon content of 2.0% can be welded when orangish-yellow, between 1,700 °F (900 °C) and 2,000 °F (1,100 °C). Common steel, between 0.2 and 0.8% carbon, is typically welded at a bright yellow heat.

Most importantly, your forge needs to be able to reach the right temperature to soften the metal, but not hot enough to melt it. The appropriate temperature for forging iron is 2500 degrees Fahrenheit or 1371 degrees Celsius.

Hot forged components possess increased ductility which makes them desirable for many configurations. Also, as a technique hot forging is more flexible than cold forging, since customized parts can be manufactured.