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Borax and blacksmith forge welding

By David Smith Copyright © 2010

About laundry borax vrs anhydrous (without water) borax. You can use
laundry borax to forge weld - I've always used Laundry Borax for all my forge
welding. But, here's a few things to throw in on borax in general.

A U. S. Borax chemist said anhydrous borax will slowly hydrate (pick up

water) in the atmosphere unless put in a container to keep the moisture out. So,
keep an air tight lid on it. He also said putting regular borax on a cookie sheet in
the oven at 400 degrees (or over) will essentially turn it into anhydrous borax.

Further, he said he doesn't know of anyone making any kind of flux that
uses anhydrous borax as opposed to regular borax because the anhydrous borax
is more expensive. Lastly, he said the borax you buy in the stores is pure borax,
except it has an anti-caking compound in it. Borax melts at about 1300 degrees
F. He said if it¶s pure borax, it should be clear or perhaps have a yellow tinge to it
after melting. I know I've melted what I thought was chemically pure borax and it
turned into the glassy black mass - Opps! Not pure! It might work for forge
welding, or may not.

First, anhydrous borax doesn't 'foam' up on heating the way laundry borax
does, because the water has already been removed. This makes it a little easier
to work with for some things. I've seen an address that sells 25 pound bags of
the stuff for like $50.00 or so.

You can make your own anhydrous borax. Fill an old pot etc. about 1/4 to
1/3 full of laundry borax, and heat in your forge. The borax will 'foam' up, so be
careful, but it will eventually melt down into a thick, dark, honey like fluid. Slowly
keep adding borax until you get a sufficient amount of the melted borax, and then
pour out onto a piece of sheet metal. (Be careful, this stuff is very hot and will
self splinter on cooling, wear safety glasses). Allow to cool and it will form a sold
black glass like substance. Crush or grind this into a powder, (safety glasses!)
and voila, anhydrous borax.
The µglass¶ borax is really hard, to crush/grind it up, I've used a piece of 2"
black pipe with an end cap. Put the borax into this, and (safety glasses!) then
pound it up with either a smaller diameter pipe/end cap or a rod.

I just purchased a 50-pound bag from the same place. The seller is
named Aqua Science, phone # (614) 252-5000, the person to talk to is Candy. I
tried to get it in my area and was quoted prices as high as $100 for 5 pounds,
therefore I thought Aqua Science¶s price was reasonable.

Manufactured by U.S. Borax Inc., 26877 Tourney Road, Valencia, CA

91355-1847, USA. The product is called 20 Mule Team - Dehybor.