Old timer in Eugene showed me a forge welding trick that finally clicked

I was struggling with forge welding at a hammer-in near Eugene last spring. This guy named Walt saw me fuming and just said "your flux is burning off before the steel gets hot enough." He walked me through heating the billet slower with a longer soak time. Has anyone else had a simple fix like that totally change how you work?

2 comments

2 Comments

david8219d ago

Soak time as in letting it sit at welding heat for a bit?

nathanbennett3d ago

Wait, is that what soak time means? Honestly, I used to think it was just about letting the metal warm up evenly before you even struck the arc, like a poor man's preheat. But yeah, @david821, you're spot on, it's more about holding that heat after you finish a pass so the material can actually settle and release stress. I remember doing a repair on a thick piece of mild steel and skipping the soak, thinking I was saving time, and the weld cracked right down the middle the next morning. Now I just count to thirty or so while the rod's still glowing and it's made a world of difference.