matt87

Mild steel as a rule doesn't harden appreciably. A36 (structural) steel can do if heated above the 'critical' temperature (a cherry red) and quenched in something severe like brine. It's mainly to do with carbon content. AISI1018 typically has 0.18% carbon by weight, AISI1040 has 0.40% and so on. In general terms it is considered that steel will not harden appreciably until there is somewhere around 0.20 to 0.30% carbon present, so AISI1018 probably won't harden. This is why railroad spikes don't make for good functional knives (even the ones marked 'HC' are maximum 0.30% carbon). When other alloying elements are involved, things can get complicated. Phosphorus is an example; phosphorus iron was used in antiquity for many applications which required some hardness, even though it contained no carbon. A36 is a special case as it is specified by performance rather than composition, so it can and does vary from batch to batch, sometimes having as much as 0.30% carbon.

If you have an electric grinder you can try spark-testing (see BP20).

Hand-forging a sword from S-7 sounds like fun! Who needs a gym membership? Steve I'm curious, did you have to keep the billet above critical? How long did it take you? Or did you grind it?

The low slag inclusions and the high carbon uniformity are major elements to this, Thomas. Try reading the article if you can get hold of it -- it's I. Mack, S. Murphy, P. Andrews and K. Wardley: Liquid steel in Anglo-Saxon England, Historical Metallurgy 34(2) 2000 87-96 with printer's corrections in HM35(1) 2001, 65-66

Temper colours are an indication of the temperature that piece of steel has reached (see Steel Tempering). However, you could have a chisel made from 1040 and one from 1095 both hardened and tempered to the same colour but they would be different hardness. If you want an actual hardness (e.g. a Rockwell number) you have to look it up. Temper Colors and Steel Hardness : anvilfire.com It is your job to choose how to temper your products and there are many factors involved -- the tool's intended use, that steel's composition, the realities of how that tool might be used, whether the tool is solid tool steel or the edge/face is laid onto wrought iron or mild steel, what are the acceptable tolerances? Is it better to have a hammer face that might slump or chip? Will this knife be used as a pry bar or a spade or a hammer, or as a surgical scalpel? What are the problems you are having making those tools?

An interesting coincidence that the Hamwick steel has been brought up -- I recently read the article in Historical Metallurgy. Turns out they found an artefact which they think is a piece of steel stuck to a piece of grey cast iron. I'll dig the cite out when I can.

A practically-minded person with blacksmithing tools and skills (amongst others) would be very sought-after in an economic depression. To borrow from a recent thread when Bob from three doors down the road has a part on his mower break, offer him to swap you making a replacement for a couple dozen eggs from the chickens he keeps out back. When Ethel from the next street needs a fire grate because she can't afford heating oil any more, make her one in exchange for her making you a new shirt. Jack wants a special tool for harvesting the cabbages on his allotment, sure you can make him one in exchange for a few of those cabbages. Smithing and its related skill-sets are practical, valuable ways and I don't think they will ever be useless. If it comes to having to re-use found scrap, so be it -- this is as old as blacksmithing itself and there is more good quality steel out there today than there was at any point in history.

There have been discussions on this before. As mentioned, there is no 'right' way, but various factors come into play, such as that most London-pattern anvils have a hardy hole at the heel, which can be a problem -- put your hardy cutter in the hole and the horn to the left and one false hammer-blow will rob you of your fingers... left, right, magnetic North, whatever works for you.

If you do it right, the antler will glue itself. Making an Antler Handle Knife

No, case-hardening is a process performed well after the smelting of the steel. Commercial products are available (e.g. Kasenite) that allow you to introduce carbon, nitrogen and possibly other chemicals into the surface of the object. They do work, but only as well as the limitations of the process itself. Example: I want to make a set of dies for a power-hammer. I use a piece of mild steel and it's too soft, so I decide to case-harden it. Now the surface is harder, but the steel underneath is still soft, so it slumps and I chuck the whole lot in the scrap bin and start again with a decent piece of tool steel.

'Cast steel' was produced by what we now call the Wootz process from around the 3rd century BC. It was probably the raw material for the swords that European Crusaders found in Damascus. In the mid 18th century an horologist by the name of Huntsman created his own version of cast steel, taking blister steel and melting it in a crucible in a coke furnace to kill the majority of the impurities. His method produced some of the finest steel available in the world, and was the method by which tool steel was made for the best part of two centuries. It turned Sheffield from a nationally-known steelmaking area to a world-renowned gold standard of steelmaking. The method lends itself to adding extra alloying elements, such as chromium (this is how 'stainless' steel was invented by Harry Brearly in Sheffield in 1913).

Welcome, Juggalo. It's good that you have taken an interest in a productive activity, which will help you to learn valuable real-world skills, and one day might lead to a job. Blacksmithing encompasses very practical skills and techniques which will always be useful, especially when financial chickens come home to roost and people need to tighten their belts. This website is probably the best single resource for metalsmithing on the internet. Furthermore it doesn't cost anything other than time to access and to learn very valuable information. It is provided so that everyone who is interested can learn about metalworking and contact other metalworkers wherever they are from, so long as they have an internet connection. There is a wealth of information here, much of it specially geared towards the beginner. As such I avoid asking a question unless I can't find the answer myself, as a matter of courtesy -- it might be free for me to access, but it costs others time and effort to answer a question, so if I expect to get an answer to my question without putting any effort in myself, that's just plain rude. As Frosty says, there is a lot to learn before starting bladesmithing - it is a specialised sector of blacksmithing - just like farriery, architectural ironwork and sculptural ironwork. They all have at their core the same skill-set, i.e. manipulation of metals while in their plastic (heated) condition with the application of localised pressure. This is forging. It's like they say, you can't walk before you can run. Therefore practice of the basic forging techniques -- drawing down, cutting, fulling, punching, bending, upsetting -- is what you need first. Considering your age there are several factors which you might have to deal with that we old fogies generally don't, such as a very small budget, no car, rapid and sporadic growth, parents, and perhaps legal concerns. None of these are necessarily insurmountable, as the number of younger smiths on this forum goes to show. There are several threads which address some of these issues, if not all. Once again, welcome to the forum and the community, Juggalo. Feel free to ask for advice whenever you need it, but be prepared for some learning.

Looks like a wrought-iron hornless anvil with a laid-on steel face to me. The face is shedding in one corner and is perhaps 1/2inch to 3/4 thick at the most. No hardy or pritchell holes. Estimate probably 18th century, maybe early 19th or late 17th. I don't see any evidence that this is for a water-hammer -- I think that period hammers used cast anvils. Wouldn't mind some better photos. I also agree that the description is a little off -- why would a decent smith need a horn to fit a shoe? Oh right. it says 'farrier'! ;-) (Just joking, all you farriers out there.)

Don't know what size you want, but MK Metals are selling 25x50mm EN43 for

Remember that this is 'cast' iron, not 'wrought' -- it will crumble if you hit it when hot.

I understand a lot of very good khukuri are made from rail in Nepal. Not sure what the Nepalese surplus rail is like though!

Hi Dave, it's me you have to blame for inviting you here :D

Thank you to all who have served, are serving and will serve, whether lions lead by donkeys or lions lead by snakes.

48willys, 'they' say a picture is worth a thousand words. Photos would surely help us diagnose the problem. What is the screwbox made from -- cast iron, wrought iron, mild steel? Is the screw thread brazed into the screwbox? What tools and skills do you have available to you? These will affect the answer.

Welcome, Jack! Don't forget that your anvil doesn't have to look like something Wile E. Coyote would suspend above a pile of roadrunner bait... there are plenty of ways of finding or making a serviceable anvil. Try looking through this forum and the gallery and 'lessons in blacksmithing' on this website to get you some ideas.

The anvils on eBay UK are generally collection-only. That said, if you can collect, you can get some real bargains. I've seen all sorts of qualities and ages, many of them in very serviceable condition.

Never forged HSS (M2) myself, but this: M2 High Speed Steel indicates a forging temperature of 1000c, or yellow heat. Old books talk about not heating tool steel above a red, I guess this is one of the reasons.

For all intents and purposes, you can't cast steel outside of a massive, expensive foundry setup. Even if you did cast something out of a high-carbon steel (feasible but not easy) it would be very brittle. The higher the carbon content, the lower the melting point. Ergo 'cast iron' (2.2-4% carbon) is easiest to cast of the iron alloys. High carbon steels are next (.6-2.2% carbon) and then the medium steels (.3-.6) and the mild steels (.2-.3). The higher the level of carbon in an iron alloy, the brittler it is. You can anneal a casting to make it tougher (less brittle) but it's not really worthwhile for your application. It's entirely possible to cast 'cast iron' (2.2-4% carbon) in your back garden, as well as various non-ferrous metals such as brass, bronze, copper, lead, tin etc. Aluminium is a good candidate for a wall-hanger/display item since it melts relatively easily, it's got a low density, is readily available as scrap and is shiny. There are many safety aspects involved -- one drop of water in a crucible and you've got a molten metal explosion.

Hi there Mag, sounds like you're doing a worthwhile job. The first thing you'll need to do is to determine exactly what the bomb casings are made from -- whether it's cast iron, mild steel, high-carbon steel etc. You might be able to get this from a military historian, the USAF, someone local to you who knows the difference, or you might get some luck talking about testing with us. I know that many anti-personnel explosive devices used to be made form cast iron, since it is a cheap material which shatters easily (thus making some 'useful' shrapnel). If it's cast iron, your best bet is to sell it for scrapmetal, and buy tools with the proceeds. Cast iron is an alloy of iron and between 2.2 and 4% by weight of carbon. It melts at a temperature which makes it feasible to cast with without sophisticated methods or equipment, but is impossible to forge, and makes for fairly brittle items. Thus it is unsuitable for making most tools from. Mild steel or high carbon steel is an alloy of iron and between 0.2 and 2.2% carbon by weight. This is probably the most useful range of iron alloys you can have, since it can be tough, springy, hard, soft or any combination of these depending upon the heat-treatment. It can also be forged by hand with some very simple techniques and tools. Keep up the good work, and I look forward to hearing from you again! P.s. just to clarify a technical point, smelting is the production of metal from its ore (rock), whereas in this case melting might be called for. It may sound like a pedantic point but there is a crucial difference which may alter your chances of finding useful information.

It is possible to carburise a piece of relatively low-carbon steel. As already mentioned, it's placed in a carbon-rich low-oxygen environment (e.g. a stone or iron chest filled with charcoal) and kept at a cherry red for a length of time. The depth of the carburised layer is proportional to the time it spends in there. A matter of hours and the item is said to be case hardened or case carburised, with applications as already mentioned. If you extend this heating time to, say, a week the depth of carburisation is dramatically increased. This is the method mostly used in the past to make steel. When wrought iron is used, the impurities in iron (slag mainly) cause gas to form and bubble out of the steel while it's soft, and so it's called blister steel. This is one of the steps that was used in making tool steel until relatively recently. After carburising the carbon content is heterogeneous (varies through the piece of steel), and so it must be refined. One way is by piling, where the steel bars are broken into lengths, wired on top of one another, and hammer-welded together. This produces shear steel; repeating the process produces double shear steel; repeating it again produces triple shear steel. Huntsman crucible steel is the result of taking blister steel, breaking it into small pieces, and melting it in a coke furnace to remove impurities. To directly answer your question, yes you can carburise mild steel into a higher-carbon one. However if you're looking for something a bit better than case-hardening it will cost you a lot more in time, fuel and burned steel to make it yourself rather than just go and buy some. However if you want to do it for the challenge, go right ahead! There are some resources available on the internet I believe form bladesmiths who have made their own shear steel. If you do, make sure you document the process and let us know about it!