I said it took me 12 months to learn to successfully forge weld materials with different qualities, and it did, in fact it took me longer than that. But I should clarify, I wasn't working on it 40 hours a week, if I think back and add the hours, it was probably something like about 1000 hours.
If I had been able to start with good coke, it would have taken less time, because you cannot weld in coal, the coal must first be coked, and even that process is not so easy, but I was taught how to do that.
It may be possible for a trained smith to learn to weld different materials in much less time than it took me to learn by trial and error, but the fact remains that in Britain in the 19th century and before there were whole communities of smiths, none of whom were able to do more than the most simple welds of wrought iron.
In fact, when I was looking for somebody to teach me how to weld high carbon steel in the forge I was told repeatedly by my own teacher, and by every other working blacksmith I approached, as well as by the several blacksmithing teachers at tech colleges, that I approached, that it was not possible to weld high carbon steel in the forge, nor was it possible to forge weld nickel with high carbon steel and wrought iron.
However, a gentleman named Bill Moran in the USA was regularly taking these welds successfully --- not sure whether he did nickel or not --- so it could be done.
These days, and particularly with gas forges and the spread of knowledge, there are many people who can take these welds, but back in the 1960's, 1970's it was a totally different story.
To return to history, in some villages in old England, the smiths needed to send welding jobs to a smith in a different village because they could not even weld wrought iron successfully.
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