Wings Best Holes at Ash Drawer

Put a hook in each hole for the stove poker tool ? Kinda like a gun rack ?

And hang the round cover lifter handle from one of the hooks ?

Paul

coalnewbie wrote:So was this a new grate replacement and say Tomahawk made a little error. So were the original grates made of bog iron that is seasoned cast iron (as I understand it). If the seasoning made no difference why did the old masters bother to age it for 6 months? Why is my RC Garnet #48 grate (unlined) still going after 110 years and looks fine? Where is our metallurgist when you need him. Is cast iron available today of the same quality as it was, you know like the POS 2017 Ford Mustang. Where is the information of how cast iron ages on standing.... Would a prior heat treatment improve things. Does rapid cooling at Tomahwk breed stress cracks that show up later. Should we ask say Tomahawk to only use the best aged stuff and cool the cast slowly ...Can we develop such standards ... being a tiny tiny business no one will do it for us. Can we source bog iron anywhere. Why did Madonna not leave the country. Vexing questions indeed.

Simon, Bog iron is the iron ore that - as the name implies - is found in bogs. It is typically a fairly pure form of iron oxide that can be used as one of the ingredients to making a cast iron. It does depend upon where the bog is located and what other elements may be found along with the iron oxide ore found in the bog. It was a fairly easy to exploit iron source. Whether or not the final cast iron is well made or not depends upon the whole process and what other steps, additions etc. are used in the making of the cast iron.

ddahlgren wrote: Good friend of mine a casting guy and metallurgist as well. I chatted with him around a year ago about the bog iron. His reply it is the cheapest low grade there is and used to save money for ore and transportation if it is close by. Quenching a cast iron part has to be the worst idea ever unless you want it to crack. Attached is a link describing different types of cast iron.

http://www.afsinc.org/files/images/iron%20alloys.pdf

ddahlgren, You'll notice on your reference that in the list of standards under grey iron, there is ASTM A319 'Standard Specification for Gray Iron Castings for Elevated Temperatures for Non-Pressure Containing Parts". That is an excellent specification for the grey irons used in our fire pots and grates. A319 lists 3 classes and 4 types of grey iron that can be used. It also allows for the addition of several other elements in the mix if desired. You sort of have to be a metallurgist to understand how to use this specification - but well used, it produces excellent castings, often far better than those originally used in our stoves...

You can rapid cool grey iron castings, it will form what is called white iron. It's listed in the reference provided above. It is not what you want for our stove parts. You can also quench and temper grey cast irons, but that is not usually done for the parts of our stoves we are talking about - in fact it's not commonly done...

Stress relieving of grey irons is done frequently. A formula that I've used in the past is heating the parts slowly to somewhere around 900*F to 1100*F, holding for an hour or two, then slowly cooling. Cooling takes like 6 to 8 hours to get to about 400*F to 600*F. Then you don't really care... ya just air cool from there to room temperature.

If you wanted to interface with Tomahawk and get grates or a fire pot, you'd have to find out if they will cast to A319, then you'd have to decide what class you want, if you want a specific type, and/or add in other alloying elements as desired. You would then also have to specify how you want the parts heat treated. I imagine Tomahawk could work to A319 and likely has heat treat equipment. But I don't know. You will find, I'm sure, by the time you are done with all the above negotiations, the cost of your grates has risen from their off-the-shelf price list. But unless you get exotic with your element additions, shouldn't be too bad...

Hope I've answered most of the questions that I breezed through ....

dj

Ruins of an old iron furnace in Kent CT. The area was clear cut to make charcoal. My well water is full of iron.

I remember some long videos of the making of a traditional Japanese sword. Two different grades of ore were selected for the blade and insert.

franco b wrote:Ruins of an old iron furnace in Kent CT. The area was clear cut to make charcoal. My well water is full of iron.

I remember some long videos of the making of a traditional Japanese sword. Two different grades of ore were selected for the blade and insert.

One of the big reasons the Europeans came to the new world was because they had destroyed most of their trees making charcoal for iron production. Then they came here and repeated it.. hahaha...

Now, the Japanese Samurai Sword is a whole different level... Interesting though - one of the reasons that the japanese sword was so good was it started with bog iron from the base of Mt. Fuji. That happens to be one of the purest iron oxides known. So they were starting with one of the "cleanest" ores around...

dj

I posted a link about the Taunton area history and bog iron in another thread. I can't find that thread now to link to that discussion, so here's the Taunton history link again.

http://www.tauntonriver.org/mills.htm

200+ years of cast iron foundry work in the area. I guess that gave them plenty enough time to figure out how to make good stoves.

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:I posted a link about the Taunton area history and bog iron in another thread. I can't find that thread now to link to that discussion, so here's the Taunton history link again.

http://www.tauntonriver.org/mills.htm

200+ years of cast iron foundry work in the area. I guess that gave them plenty enough time to figure out how to make good stoves.

Paul

Nice read! There have been so many paradigm shifts in iron making between the 17th century and now. Especially since WWII. But major changes also occurred from around the civil war to the early 20th century. The difference between running charcoal and running coal as a fuel source was huge. Plus they had to move from bog iron to iron ores. They had no real analytical equipment back in the 17th and 18th centuries for measuring composition of the melts as they are being melted. Today we can put a probe right into a batch of liquid metal and know the composition within decimals in minutes. At least by the beginning of the 20th century there were techniques for measuring the metal composition while running. It's an amazing testament to the guys running those old furnaces how well they did with what little they had to work with...

dj

I'm glad I stumbled across that link. That's the first I've come across accounts of such early foundry work here in the colonies. I knew foundries were one of our biggest industries in the 1800's, but didn't know that some had a 100 year head start.

Paul

That's the idea.Otherwise I'll be kicking the handle all over the place. If my reply was slow, I was fishing at Ross Lake, Maine. It's so far from everything that it's almost in Canada.

Now, the Japanese Samurai Sword is a whole different level... Interesting though - one of the reasons that the japanese sword was so good was it started with bog iron from the base of Mt. Fuji. That happens to be one of the purest iron oxides known. So they were starting with one of the "cleanest" ores around...

I had thought the swords were some sort of laminated steel and hammer forged. You are not going to make a cast iron sword that lasts very long.

All steel starts out as iron ore. It's what you do to it after,.... cast, forged, or otherwise.

By repeated heating, folding, welding and hammering, the Samurai swords are far from cast iron. There's some wonderful videos of the process on You tube. That process is repeated so many times that I'm not sure you could call it a lamination when it's done???? It might be more like blending the different materials ?

Some types of Damascus steel are also a welded lamination of different types of steel.

There are also laminated blades used in knives and tools. Typically just three layers that you can still see each layer clearly.

I have a few antique woodworking planes and chisels that have laminated blades. Plus, some Japanese made kitchen knives that are laminated steel. And, I don't know if they still are, but 25 years ago some of the woodworking supply houses were offering new manufacture lamented plane blades.

They all hold a sharp edge longer than regular tool steel blades because of the high carbon content, but very brittle core lamination. The more flexible layers of steel are on the outside to add toughness.

Paul

Sunny Boy wrote:All steel starts out as iron ore. It's what you do to it after,.... cast, forged, or otherwise.
By repeated heating, folding, welding and hammering, the Samurai swords are far from cast iron. There's some wonderful videos of the process on You tube. That process is repeated so many times that I'm not sure you could call it a lamination when it's done???? It might be more like blending the different materials ?

They are laminated. Process called pattern welding.

Sunny Boy wrote:Some types of Damascus steel are also a welded lamination of different types of steel.

Damascus steel is actually a crucible steel originating in the region of Damascus. The technology at the time (don't remember the dates right now, but say around 900 AD) did not have the capability to create a homogeneous steel ingot, the ingot would have segregation patterns depending upon the shape of the crucible used. The artisans of that time period used those segregation patterns to develop patterns in the swords made. The outward appearance is similar to the pattern welded Samurai swords, although the Samurai swords are technically superior in many ways. This similar outward appearance lead the term Damascus steel to be used when looking at pattern welded swords, although it is a very different technology. The Damascus steel swords produced at that time were very high quality compared to the "competition" in the western world of the time period.

In the creation of the pattern welded steels used in the Samurai sword, there as typically three grades of steel created. Essentially low carbon, medium carbon and high carbon grades of steel. Utilizing these three grades, the blade was made incorporating these three grades to be located in strategic locations in the cross section of the sword to produce an amazing sword - flexible, hard cutting edge and very difficult to be damaged in battle.

dj

I number of years ago I was doing some research and came across a paper from NASA that had been looking into a similar issue as I was researching. That paper concluded that after all the work they had done, they felt they had re-discovered the Samurai sword...