[Sca-cooks] Off Topic: Bleach replacement?

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> How does it help in the welding process? I'm only familiar with its uses
> as a laundry and personal-care products additive and as flame retardant
> for fabrics (and for getting dumped out of airplanes)...(oh, wait, I may
> have answered my own question....does it affect the heat of the items in
> some way?)
> --maire, itching at the thought of all that borax (I'm really allergic
> to it from years of over-exposure at a job)

It melts all over the piece you're working on, and prevents the oxygen from
burning the metal. At the temperatures I work at when welding in the forge,
the metal will actually catch fire and burn, unless you protect it from
oxygen. If you do protect it, however, you can weld two (or more) pieces
together as solidly as if they were from the same original piece of steel.

Borax is relatively non-toxic, so it's one of the few chemicals that I take
with me and my forge to events. That way, if someone burns themself, I can
direct them to put their burn into the slack bucket to cool it, without
having to worry about weird chemicals. Also, disposal of the contents of the
slack bucket is easy- just pouring it out where no one is likely to walk for
half an hour or so is perfectly safe.

One of the things I do to get rid of unusable scrap metal- little bits and
pieces of cut-offs, that sort of thing, is just throw them into the forge
and let them burn up. That way, at the end of the day I don't have little
things that someone can step on or an animal can swallow- instead, it turns
into ash, and gets disposed of with the rest of the ashes.

Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....