Hmmm. As a new smith you should be able to make your own hot chisels along with many other useful tools such as punches/slitters/drifts and what not. You can use coil springs or leaf springs to make them. You could also turn those cold chisels into hot chisels by forging them into shallower angles to make them hot chisels. This would then bring us to a proper heat treating. You would need to anneal/harden/temper them to finish them.
Just because a tool is designed for a specific purpose doesn't mean that as a smith, you can't change them to suit your needs. You will find that most commerical tools are not really what you will need as is. Hammers are a good example. Most commercial hammers are sharp edged and need to be "dressed" to be useful for forging. This is a minor version of changing what you get versus what you want/need. All of my smithing hammers have started as either 3lb sledge hammer heads or drilling hammer heads. From these I turn them into diagonal cross pein hammers, rounding hammers, flatters etc.
Another thought would also be a hot chisel with a handle attached. I prefer this over just the hot chisel. It makes things easier to control and see when you are doing the chisel work. I actually forged a slag chipping hammer head into a hot chisel hammer and it works great. Just forged/annealed the hammer head (after you cut off the handle of course) into the shape I wanted and then annealed/hardened and tempered the cutting tip. See there I go again, changing a tool into another tool ;-).
You will need to harden/temp the cutting tip but you want the body and struck end soft so you don't have it chipping on you. This is true for the regular chisels/punches etc. because you will be a striking with a hardened hammer against hardened steel. This is not a good thing. If you don't soften the struck end of the tool it could cause chipping and send flying metal shrapnel into you or anybody close to you.
Hope this helps.
 |