bogmonster

Ok, a few more details. Front and back plates 10m. Base 12mm, dies 25mm x 50mm O1 (maybe not the best but available). Side posts 25mm square. Tools used: Bandsaw Drill press Hacksaw Cold chisel Stick welder Taps Files Countersink bit Kiln The plates are 100mm wide by 130mm tall. I have the option to cut out sections of the sides to pass stock through the sides. The dies have bees hardened and tempered (after photos taken). They have m12 bolts for striking buttons. To save expensive steel I used machine screws to attach swege die faces to mild steel die bodies. Still to do: Removable plate with hardy stake (removable so I can use in my yet to be built treacly hammer :) Paint Shims for front plate - bits of beer can..... This was my first try cutting plate with a cold chisel, first try tapping holes and first try heat treating so a big learning curve. Regards, Chris.

Here are a few pics of the helper I am currently making. Still work in progress but hope to get some time to finish this weekend. The design is heavily based on John B's. I have changed the design a bit due to skill and tool availability. Will provide more details if folks are interested. Cheers, Chris.

Looks like a good build and a neat job. I have just made one of these albeit with a different design. No spring in mine, apparently many folks don't like using a spring as it is harder to feel where the steel is fullered. At least if you add a spring you can allways remove it. Not sure how I could add a spring to mine... I planned to post some pics of my build but sadly I can't post a new thread :( BW, Chris.

Hi, Thanks for all the help. The HT is now done and as far as I can tell all was OK. Used ceramic kiln for hardening heat. Quenched in auto gearbox oil. Tempered in mail box kiln (swapped the controller over from the main kiln). Used gas forge and off-cuts of steel to pre-heat the quench oil. All in all a dirty, messy job but not difficult. Only slight drama was nearly losing one of the dies down the side of one of the kiln shelves in the top loading kiln. That would have been annoying as there would have been no way to retrieve until the kiln had cooled. All that is left is to forge and weld on a stake so I can place the helper in my anvils hardy hole. I will do a separate write up of the tool, might help another newbie like me. EDIT: Other post will have to wait - don't appear to be able to create a new thread or even send a PM to the admininstrators. Permission error :( I don't think I have done anything so terrible to get barred :( Chris. You have done nothing wrong that I know of. We are working on the software posting perrmissions code.

Cheers Thomas, Sounds like option 1 is a goer then - I like this having just forked out for a very expensive car service :( I was planning on using veg oil as i don't fancy the outlay of purpose quench oil or the toxic chemicals of engine oil. Had already tested the oven idea out on SWMBO and got raised eyebrows but no outright objection :) For O1 I found: Tempering Temperature F Rockwell C 300 65 350 63 400 62.5 450 61 500 60 600 57 Still trying to find the correct answer but it looks like tempering towards the top of the top of that range is probably appropriate and beyond my oven's temp. I was planning to temper at about 530F that I think will be about 59 Rockwell. It seems that is what hammer heads are typically hardened to. As my dies will have striking buttons I am not going to be thumping the die directly with the hammer. Cheers, BM.

Hi, At risk of asking another really dumb question... I have annealed some scrap from the car boot sale. Some in the forge using a magnet and some in the kiln. A crowbar I bought for £1 had the decency to have the steel grade stamped on the side. All appeared to work OK as far as I can tell - they all ended up in a soft state to machine (I know this isn't the full definition of success). I also now have the O1 for the dies. I have shaped my first die pair but still waiting for the M12 taps for the button. I did however come up with a potential snag in my kiln HT plan. If I use the kiln to get up to a precise temp to harden then said kiln will be way too hot to temper immediately after the quench. Shock cooling the kiln is very bad idea as it will destroy the bricks very quickly and the kiln is too good to screw up like that. So I am looking at alternatives: 1) Would it be OK to temper (at a lower temp than I ultimately need for my desired hardness) in the kitchen oven. My oven probably will not get hot enough for the final hardness I am after and it is definitely not very accurate. Then a day later temper again in the kiln at the required temperature? I have seen posts on double and triple tempering (which appears to be a good practice by most - well double anyway). However from what I can tell double tempering is usually at the same temp. Will there be any adverse side effects of tempering at a lower temp in my oven first and then tempering at the desired temp in my kiln a day later. 2) I do actually have a second kiln (homemade one this time - post box annealer design). This kiln was designed for glass annealing so will struggle to get to critical temp for steel but will definitely get to annealing temps. Sadly I have used its controller for the other kiln. I could make up a simple PID controller for this (but want to avoid the cost of a ramp / soak PID unit). I could still ramp down albeit by manually changing the temp setting every 10 mins. 3) Last option is to use a thermocouple in a multimeter and man a switch :( That sounds like a real PITA and not something I want to do. 4) Leave the kiln to cool down for say 10 hours'ish and then temper - leaving the steel in its quenched and hardened state all this time. Everything I have read says not to do this. Is it a big risk on a 1 x 2 x 4 inch block of O1? If option 1 will work then great, no more outlay of cash. If option 1 is a bad idea I think I will go for option 2. Option 3 just sounds too much hassle, too much time and too much potential to cock it up. So in short, will option 1 work adequately? Regards, BM.

Hi Steve, I hope I have not caused offense and I have not taken any either. I had read many posts including your sticky but clearly I was confused about a few things and I feel more confident now. On the notion of using / not using a magnet, this came from experience I have with glass where you can anneal unknown glass by overheating and ramping slowly down - I wanted to know if the same concept could be applied to steel. Apparently not. Good job it works with glass though as magnets are of little use there :) Best wishes, Chris.

Just checked, kiln is good for 1300C so plenty of headroom. O1 anneal is 740 to 760 although I should not need to anneal again. Normalizing is 670 to 700. I think with this I can soak for 30 mins and then just turn the kiln off. Hardening is 780 to 820 with a soak at about 400 and then a soak at full temp for 30+ mins per 25mm - (I will soak for longer to ensure an even heat) . Not sure what a suitable ramp up rate is so need to check. Tempering is from 100 to 350 - Just need to work out a suitable hardness for the dies. For tempering I have read I should soak for at least 2 hours. I think I should then be able to turn the kiln off and let cool under its own steam - it will cool very slowly at this sort of temp but just in case I will set a ramp down for 40 degrees F (sorry mixed units there). I will set up some schedules with pre-heats soaks and hopefully it will all work out. BM

Thanks for taking the time for such a detailed reply John. Tapping the dies for M12 bolts for the strikers sounds a really good idea and takes a whole load of variables out of consideration. The kiln should certainly get hot enough, It is a ceramics kiln and I think it probably tops out at about 1150C. I like the idea of using the kiln because I can get nice long soaks at a known stable temperature. Temperatures for glass work are very critical and the thermocouple and controller have been calibrated. I may just wheel the kiln outside and use it to heat the dies for the hardening as well as the tempering. Mrs BM will get grumpy if I do the hardening in our conservatory, I will stink the house out and probably crack the slate floor dropping hot lumps of hot steel on it. I am feeling a bit more confident now :) I will try with one die to start with to see if I can get the process down properly. I have only purchased a 500mm length of O1 so if I totally screw it up it's not a complete disaster. If I can get it to work then more dies can come later. The steel won't arrive until after the bank holiday which will give me some more time to prep and read up. Oh, and mull it over with a few pints :) In the interim I will can crack on with making the frame. Cheers, BM.

Hi Steve, I have done some reading, my baseline would have been even lower otherwise :( There is a lot of contradictory info out there so I wanted to get some idea if I was on the right track. I take it from your comment that I am completely lost and wasting everyone's time so apologies to all. The trouble with trying to learn from internet is there is sometimes too much information and I don't know anybody locally who can actually show me. Hi Thomas, OK, sounds like the one temp fits all anneal was a duff idea. Happy to use the magnet if that will get good results. As for the tempering hardness I will do a bit more research. BW, BM.

Oh, another question if I may. For both the butcher tool and helper dies what sort of hardness am I after. Will light straw be appropriate which I beleive is about 445F? Reading up the soak time should be 1 hour for 1 inch + 1 hour from what I can make out. Just to be sure I will leave it a bit longer. Cheers, BM.

Hi, Ok, new to blacksmithing and definately new to heat treating. I have a couple of projects where I need to heat treat. Fist off I want to make some simple tools such as a hand held butcher from old files and like. I want to anneal first. I beleive I sould heat up to critical temp using a magnet to test. Then cool slowly. I do have an electric kiln with computer controlled ramp / soak controller (used for glass work mainly) that I could use. Because I will not know the grade of steel can I just heat up to the higher end of temps for annealing and cool slowly in a kiln instead? It looks like the higher the carbon content the lower the temp. Can I anneal say somewhere in the range of say 1450 to 1500 without the the magnetic test and get satisfactory results? I.e. if it was W1 steel that lists anneal temp as 1375 to 1400, what is the implication of holding at 1500 for 30 mins and cooling off slowly from there? I would still be going through the annealing temp at a slow rate regardless of the carbon rate. I ask this because putting multiple pieces of steel in the kiln sounds easier than cooling slowly in a bucket of lime or similar. By the way, I don't really want to open the kiln and do a nagmetic test when hot as this does not do the kiln bricks a lot of good. Hardenning is another issue as I don't know what to quench in. I am guessing that air hardenning seel is unlikely from the scrap I am likely to be using but I could try air hardenning and taking at it with a file just to be sure. I was thinking of just trying oil. Pressumably if the steel was supposed to be water hardenned then I would just end up with a tool that was not properly hardened, is that correct, as I am not making mission critical components then this would be OK? Obviously I don't want a hand tool to shatter when in use so water quenching an air hardenning steel sounds like a bad idea. Tempering will be done on a steel plate over a coke forge by colour. Right, now that one is out of the way, I plan to make a blacksmith's helper tool. I have some annealed O1 25mm x 50mm x whatever stock for the dies. I plan to: 1) Size and shape the dies. 2) Harden by quenching in oil. Question - should I harden the whole die (yes I think on the bottom as its only about 1.5" loing - on the top it will be abount 100mm long so I could only quench the bottom inch or two - this sounds right to me?) 3) Then stick weld on a striking button of mild steel 4) Then temper - again I hope to do this in the kiln and for the dies I will know the steel grade so I can set a precise temp in the kiln Anything wrong with the above sequence? Any other tips? Sorry for all the dumb questions - new at all this. BW, BM

Thanks for all the advise. I have made a monkey tool and have just ordered up some O1 steel to make a blacksmith's helper tool. I will also be making a butcher tool and will be giving mortice and tenon a go. Now onto heat treating but I will start another thread for that. BM

Of course I meant swage not fuller above - doh :wacko:

Yeah, I would have liked to gas weld and was actually taught to gas weld years ago but must have forgotten it all by now. Unfortunately I am using oxy/propane. Acetylene is difficult in a doestic property in the UK I think. Probably could get a neater job done with it though. For the tenons to get a clean edge do I need to use a 'set' tool. I am thinking here of an acute edge (say about 70 degrees) to form the shoulder first? I have a fly press and was thinking of making a set tool for that with top and bottom edges. Once the shoulders are done I think I could form the tennon over a nice square edge without too much difficulty. I have made a sqaure tenon in this way on a course (if I remember correctly). As for the fullers, I was going to have a go at making my own. I have some leaf spring which is quite thick in the middle. I was going to drill and then cut through center of hole to make two halfs. Because I would lose material with the blade kerf I might actually need to cut off center of the hole with one hole making only a top or bottom. I like the idea of drilling as I think this way I will get clean edges which I think will be required for the tenons. However I suspect I ahve this all wrong and there is a much easier way. BM.