That forge welding demo at the Florida conference changed how I think about flux

Last year at the Florida Blacksmithing Conference I watched this old guy named Roy do a forge weld with ZERO borax. He just cleaned his metal perfectly and used a really tight heat. Everyone in the shop said you need flux every time but he proved them wrong. Now I only use borax on rusty or dirty material and my welds come out cleaner. Has anyone else tried going flux-free on clean steel?

2 comments

2 Comments

brooke4754d ago

Yeah I had the same thing happen at a hammer-in last year, guy named Dave did a whole demo with just clean mild steel and a good orange heat and it stuck perfect. Tried it myself on some fresh bar stock and it worked way better than I expected, flux just seems like a crutch for bad prep most of the time. Now I save the borax for when I'm welding up old rusty stuff from the scrap pile and it saves me a mess lol.

shane7514d ago

Bet you'd think different if you ever tried a forge weld on wrought iron.