hardened steel, how

[hammerhandsyd]

well i meant com short for commission, i dont ask what my people want em for unless its gona be for food deco or blades, he said it needs to be sharp enough to cut bronze. well i dont realy have a steel suppplier cause most of my metal is old scrap and i dont use rebar so im never gona go to the bar factory.
my "teacher dosnt really know the carbon point of metal cause he never makes knifes and when he dose its just outa files

oh and by the by do any of you know bill senseny if you do could you direct me to his email or phone #?

[matt87]

The quick-and-dirty: the carbon content of a piece of steel varies between 0.2% and 2.2% by weight. Above that it's cast iron, below that it's wrought/bloomery/puddled iron. Because even a small change in carbon content will drastically affect the properties of the steel, the carbon content is often expressed in points, one point being one hundredth of a percent, i.e. 1/10000. Thus a medium carbon steel might be 0.5% carbon by weight, AKA a 50-point steel.

[ThomasPowers]

Try automotive coil or leaf springs; usually easy to find them thrown out or cheap at a good mechanic's shop. They are often around 5160 steel and will harden much better than a RR spike, the "high carbon" RR spikes have at most 30 points of carbon in them and that is the boundry between low carbon and medium carbon steel. 5160 has 60 points carbon and so starts twice as high! Files are high carbon

Forge not letting it get too hot---sparking or too cold---don't hammer it if it's not glowing. Do the rough stock removal shaping. Then normalize it a couple of times and then heat to non-magnetic and quench in warm oil, take out when cool and clean it up and immediately draw temper. I would go with peacock to light blue unless he has to have it harder, then repeat the heat treat and draw to dark straw.

Note that new smiths don't start out with knives; they learn the basics first as forging the higher carbon steels is harder and trickier, forging range is much reduced, stress concentrators, decarburization, heat treat issues, all make blade making an "advanced" form of smitthing. You can always tell him "Hey I don't know how to do that yet". Nothing wrong with starting out---unless you try to do stuff you don't know enough about. Then it becomes very frustrating and not very fun.

[ThomasPowers]

Actually it's not the carbon content that identifies Wrought Iron as there are WI derrived steels either natural ones from high carbon blooms or artificial ones like blister and shear steels.

What makes wrought iron wrought iron is the presence of ferrous silicate spicules in the iron matrix.

Now most wrought iron is very low in carbon; but not all!

[hammerhandsyd]

well thomas any tip for hardening and tempering, i think ill do that. i dont have any torch cept a puny 10'' tall gas one.

ill try a widling knife with file steel so ill follow that oil quench thingy(is linseed ok or do i have to use some crude oil thing?)

dose any one know of a cheap cuting torch? i dont care if it dosnt cut well as long as i can use it for tempering and bending

[Woody]

hammerhandsyd:

Please message me with your email address and I will send you about 20 or so pages in MS Word format on the properties of various junk yard steels and info on hardening and tempering various steels.

[ericthered]

Hi Guys,

I need to make a few tools myself. Drawknife, travisher, froe, spokeshaves, and some hardys of various intended duties. I'd love to make some hammers as well but that luxury down a way on the "to do" list. Obviously the froe will need to be somewhat tougher to withstand the blows from a mallet while the shaving tools merely need to hold an edge during the duty cycle, preferably a razor sharp one. I don't mind purchasing "new" steel if it means ending up with a superior product. Any suggestions?

[ericthered]

Woody, If you don't mind, cc me with that list as well: seniorasi@gmail.com

[Quenchcrack]

Spring steel does a nice job at being tough and holding an edge. There is a BP for a drawknife, and I have made several that work very well. It also makes good froes. I have several large coil springs (1" thick turns) from a Railroad car that, while difficult to forge by hand, makes dandy tools.

[jimmy seale]

i have made a draw knife out of a large bearing race, works well but wouldn't impact it with a hammer, but is a goodun, for a froe i think i'd use leaf spring, but then again i may be talking out of turn, good luck and post pixs, jimmy