Modern life would be impossible without aluminum, and yet the silver metal has been in widespread use only for about the last 100 years. Lightweight, strong, easily alloyed, highly conductive, and easy to machine, cast, and extrude, aluminum has found its way into virtually every industrial process and commercial product imaginable. No matter how many syllables you use to say it, aluminum is one of the most useful industrial metals we have. Not a bad result, and all at the cost of a couple of clay flowerpots.Ĭontinue reading “This Stainless Steel Knife Build Starts With Raw Iron Ore” → Posted in Misc Hacks Tagged alloy, knifemaking, magnetite, metal, metallurgy, smelting, stainless steel, Thermite The finished knife looks good and performs well, and the blade has the characteristic look of stainless. He turned the metal over to an actual blacksmith for rough forging it sure seemed to act like steel on the anvil. And thanks to the addition of goodies like graphite, manganese, nickel, silicon, and chromium, he was eventually able to create a sizable lump of 402 stainless steel. The iron oxide and aluminum in the thermite mix react in an exceptionally exothermic manner to generate elemental iron, which under controlled conditions can be captured as a more or less pure ingot, ready for forging.Īfter a test with commercially obtained iron oxide, tried his pulverized magnetite. Smelting one’s own iron from raw ore and alloying it into steel is generally not a backyard project thanks to the high temperatures needed, a problem solved with the magic of thermite. ![]() ![]() Rather than buy his metal from the usual sources, ’s first stop was an iron mine in the Italian Alps, where he picked up a chunk of iron ore - magnetite, to be precise. But pretty much every build includes steel from a commercial supplier. Depending on how far you get into the hobby, builds can range from assembling and finishing a kit with pre-forged parts, to actual blacksmithing with a hammer and anvil. Making knives at home has become a popular hobby, thanks partly to reality TV and the free time and idle hands afforded by lockdowns.
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