The Armour Archive

Alright, I was able to requisition another 8 street signs legally for no cost. Now I've decided to try some Italian Gothic with it and have begun work on the breastplate.

Aluminum bites at compound curves...

So I understand Aluminum has a relatively low melting point, which would logically mean I wouldn't need much heat at all to get it to bend to my will... pun not intended... Am I correct in assuming this? I understand that it will mess with the temper, but with the way aluminum workhardens I figured I could get the rough shape hot then pound the details out could to get it hard again. Would this work? Does anyone have experience with it? I could really use a temperature figure to shoot for.

I would think that working aluminium hot would be a bad idea. You could normalise it by annealing it. though this process varies with the temper.

Aluminum is tricky to work with. It reaches its melting point before it has any visible incandesent glow. Also, just before it melts, it tends to fall to pieces. You can, however, forge it cold.

I met some smiths in Florida who worked with it a lot. For small items, they had dry sticks that they rubbed on the stock. As son as the stick smoked on contact with the metal, they pulled it out and forged it, and re-heated it according to the resistatnce of the hammer. For larger pieces, they had a special gas forge, rigged to maintain the proper temperature for forging aluminum. One advantage of a gas forge is that they can hold a steady temperature (as opposed to a coal forge, where the temperature can easily creep up to HOLYCATS THE STEEL IS BURNING AWAY LIKE A FIREWORK SPARKLER!

You may want to experiment (a lot) before undertaking any critical projects.

yay the trusty stick method. Our version for tempering axes was to use a pine bit of stick with the bark off. When the metal had reached correct heat the resin in the stick would start to come out and lubricate the stick's movement as you slid the tip across the metal face. As soon as you felt it go "slick", it was done. The almost identical temp is also right for hot-working aluminium. The other thing that works is a decent hot-air paint stripping gun. It alos gives you controlled area heat. Takes a little while to get the hang off, but you are not going to set fire to your material and the guns are really cheap.

Attli, someone let you get aluminium anywhere near a coal forge????!!!??? I am scandalised from right here on the other side of the world!

That forge would not have been good for forge welding anything for about six months!
Aluminium in coal forges is wicked and evil and liable to get the perpetrater castrated with two cocconuts and a sense of rightous patience!



Horrified Sasha

Sasha wrote: ...

Attli, someone let you get aluminium anywhere near a coal forge????!!!??? I am scandalised from right here on the other side of the world!

That forge would not have been good for forge welding anything for about six months!
Aluminium in coal forges is wicked and evil and liable to get the perpetrater castrated with two cocconuts and a sense of rightous patience!

Horrified Sasha

It was, fortunately, with a friends forge, before I had my own. (...it was the, uh, '70s man; we were, like, uh, strong and brave and like, uh, stoopid in those days... )

My wonderful melt-down in my coal forge was to put a batch of brass scrap in a small, ornamental cast iron pot, since the brass was supposed to melt at a few hundred degrees before the cast iron was supposed to melt. What I didn't count on was the cast iron reaching its melting point in one spot before the brass, inside, reached its full melting point. Bottom melts out of the pot, sending molten cast iron and melting brass down through the coals and into the bottom of the tuyere.

Well, it is all a learning experience! I just work aluminum cold these days, and use a proper crucible for brass casting.