matt87

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

you could "dry weld" the tool steel face on a large chunk of iron
- same method used in making mosaic damascus...

- clean both flat steel faces of oxides
- weld a bead around the edge of 2 pieces to be joined ( this is to exclude oxygen )
- bring the piece up to a yellow weld heat and then sledge the face till you feel its welded.. . no flux needed

- then heat treat it


Greg

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

I am citing the Arema (The American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association) 2007 document, Part 2 "manufacture of Rail"

Standard rail steel:
.74 to.86% Carbon,
.75 to 1.25% Manganese,
.10 to .60% Silicon
Minimum Brinell (of unhardened surface) 310 or 370 dependant of grade ordered.

Low Alloy Rail Steel
.72 to .82% Carbon,
.80 to 1.10% Manganese,
.25 to .40& Chromium,
.10 to .50% Silicon
Minimum Brinell (of unhardened surface) 310, 325, or 370 dependant of grade ordered.
My document shows the following breakdown for grades:
SS = standard strength (brinell 310)
HH = Head Hardened (brinell 370)
LA = Low Alloy Standard Strength (brinell 310)
IH = Low Alloy Intermediate (brinell 325)
LH = Low Alloy Head Hardened (brinell 370)

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.

I'm a bit confused on this matter, when steel is melted does it not it revert back to iron?
how would this process be done. I am familiar with lost wax castings, but not with steel.

(jodysamson.com/axes.htm)
these are some beautiful axes and i would like to try casting steel into forms like these!

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!

I've heard them to be a useful grade of tool steel. However, more crucially, most of them are chromed, and you certainly don't want to put that in a fire.

So far as I've seen, most general purpose anvils were basically a lump of wrought iron with a steel face (if you were lucky) until a mere, say, 200 years ago. Separate bick-irons/bickerns set into the end of a log were commonly used when you needed one.

Armouring though is another kettle of fish, and judging by the woodcuts etc. I've seen, I would say that's where the double-horned anvil comes from. There's also been suggestions here and there that 'church window' anvils were armourers' anvils, for use as swages in shaping sheetiron.

As an aside, I don't see why the London pattern is so common. Okay, so with the integration of so many features, a smith might be able to perform say 85% of forging tasks with a London pattern anvil and a hammer, as opposed to 80% with a suitable hornless and hole-less anvil. Why not add a square horn on there and increase that still?

Put me down as interested, John! I can probably recruit a couple of friends too.

Welcome, Talis. Which part of the southwest are you to? Try contacting John B (member on this board) -- he runs courses at the Westpoint forge, just outside of Exeter.

A small hand fuller is great at the bottom of a split, e.g. when making a fork; it helps prevent the sharp edges of the split from spreading.

As already noted, a hand fuller or a handled/set fuller can be placed with more precision than using an integrated one. Spring fullers and guillotines fitted with fullers can be used with great precision -- even without great hammer control.

There is another type of rifling machine, where the cutter rod is attached to the centre of a pinion. The pinion and its rack ride on a carriage, which is slowly fed away from the barrel blank, which is fixed in place. The rack slides perpendicular to the bed, and is attached to a sine bar which is moved along a guide bar, at an angle to the bed (and thus the barrel). Therefore the cutter rotates as the carriage is advanced, at a rate proportionate to the angle of the guide bar. By altering the angle of the guide bar, the twist rate can be adjusted. By using a curved guide bar, a progressive twist can be cut.

I understand that this is how the Pratt & Whitney machines worked. They produced the most advanced cut-rifling machines by powering these by hydraulics and attaching a second cutter (so two barrels are simultaneously cut). Such machines, built in the early 20th century, are still used by some of the smaller barrel manufacturers, and just as accurate today. Nowadays, most barrels are button-rifled or cold-forged around a mandrel.

Welcome! That's a nifty-sounding setup you've got there.

My main concern would be though, what size is your jeweller's anvil? Most I have seen are weighed by the gram, not the kilogram.

I read the nanotube article but wasnt able to access the mystery of damascus. I am very interested in forging damascus. I have made a few knives in my day but I want to make damascus blades and am learning what I can.

Don't forget, what is often called damascus steel today, is not how the 'swords of Damascus' were made. In the past, trying to recreate Damascus blades, smiths tried forge-welding different types of steel in a method we would today call pattern welding. This emulated the look of Damascus blades, and so it was thought for a while that the mystery of Damascus steel had been sold. When the structure of the steels were examined though, it was found that Damascus steels were very different.

Long story short it was found that Wootz steel, a form of crucible steel probably developed in southern India, was probably the raw material for the Damascus blades. The question remained about where the patterns came from. The leading theory for a while was that the carbon somehow developed in various patterns across the blade. This article propounds the theory that there were small amounts of vanadium in the ores used, which caused the patterns. There is though literary evidence, as well as some corroborating evidence, that the steel came from a very different smelting method from Sri Lanka, until the 11th century AD or so.

If you want to make Wootz steel, expect a steep learning curve. There is though some community for it online.

(Of course, the so-called 'swords of Damascus' were so-named by the Mediaeval European Crusaders, as this is where they were encountered. There is though no evidence that these swords were made near Damascus; they were simply sold there.)

Or use a metal ammunition can from your local army surplus. Then you can run control wires inside and mount them through the wall, and open the lid for access.