Big debate: Forge welding with borax vs. modern flux pastes...

I started out using plain borax years ago and it worked fine, but I switched to a commercial flux paste about 6 months back and my welds are way cleaner with less scale. Has anyone else noticed that borax leaves more pits or is it just my technique messing me up?

2 comments

2 Comments

hill.barbara7d ago

Funny you mention the pits, because that's exactly what I struggled with when I used straight borax on some twisted cable Damascus. Could it be that the borax is pulling impurities out but leaving voids behind, while the paste fills those gaps better during the weld? What brand of paste did you go with, because I tried one that felt too watery and it didn't help at all.

taylorm897d ago

@hill.barbara actually borax doesn't pull stuff out, it just floats the scale so it doesn't trap in the weld, but paste does fill pits better.