Quenchcrack

If this is a ceremonial hammer, what's wrong with making it out of wood? Charlotte brings up some very practical issues. You made a big honkin' hammer before, Charlotte? I think I would consider her issues very carefully.

Ah the good old days when 19,000 men and women had good jobs in the mills. Today, they are mostly replaced by automation. Typical mill might only have 500-600 people. And Youngstown is mostly dead as far as steel goes. I was there a few years ago and it looked like a Twilight Zone set from the 1950's. The newer electric arc furnaces melt 150 tons of scrap in under an hour. I was in a Nucor mill and there was one lonely maintenance man on the rolling mill floor, looking for something to fix. Did ya notice nobody wore hard hats or safety glasses?

Thomas, You illustrate the problem exactly. Chemistry typically varies wildly from source to source. The .067 sulfur suggests to me that this was a heat that did not get properly de-sulfurized and would not meet any other spec so it became re-bar.

This is a description of the ASTM A615 specification that is listed on the Spec that Woody posted. While the mill test report has a chemistry for the heat, notice that a chemistry is NOT specified in the specification; the strength level IS specified. I can report the chemistry of a garbage can lid but that does not imply that it was made to any particular chemistry specification, only that the chemistry of the heat used to make the garbage can lid has the chemistry reported. The spec references the AISI and SAE specifications for ALLOY steel bars but note that they must meet the "other" requirements of the ASTM spec, which is the STRENGTH requirments. The material in the MTR posted appears to conform to the Grade 75. Also, note that the sulfur reported on the MTR is .067!!!! Modern steel making can easily achieve .003% so this heat can be expected to be full of inclusions, ie, dirty. ASTM A615/A615M-08b Standard Specification for Deformed and Plain Carbon-Steel Bars for Concrete Reinforcement 1.1 This specification covers deformed and plain carbon-steel bars for concrete reinforcement in cut lengths and coils. Steel bars containing alloy additions, such as with the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Society of Automotive Engineers series of alloy steels, are permitted if the resulting product meets all the other requirements of this specification. The standard sizes and dimensions of deformed bars and their number designations are given in Table 1. The text of this specification references notes and footnotes which provide explanatory material. These notes and footnotes (excluding those in tables) shall not be considered as requirements of the specification. 1.2 Bars are of three minimum yield strength levels: namely, 40 000 [280 MPa], 60 000 [420 MPa], and 75 000 psi [520 MPa], designated as Grade 40 [280], Grade 60 [420], and Grade 75 [520], respectively. 1.3 Plain bars, in sizes up to and including 2

Rebar is made to strength specifications and can be almost any chemistry so it is a crapshoot as to what you might get. It is generally the "balony" cut and is often pretty dirty. It may or may not forge well.

I have two commercial hot cuts that are about 2" tall and one that was forged for me by a gentleman named "Snow Smith" who I have not talked to in years. It is about 3" tall and works just fine.

So I am at the Spring Forge Festival sponsored by HABA in Oldenberg, TX today. A guy has a small rivet forge with a nice CAST IRON Champion blower that works great. The forge bowl is rusty and has a small hole in it but I can fix that. The outside and the legs need sand blasting and a good paint job. No problem. For $85 bucks and no shipping it was worth it. I have two gas forges but this is my first coal forge. Since I can only use it at demos and club meetings, it won't be used much so I figured this little mud hen can rest and do light duty for the rest of its life.

My favorite steak turner has a steer head on the end. Easy to do and makes a very appealing item.

Iron forms "grains" as it solidifies in the ingot or slab. The grains are very long and grow in toward the center of the ingot. The further into the ingot, the smaller the grains are. By hot working (forging or rolling) the grains are distorted and broken up and by re-heating, they re-form into mostly uniform size. By heating again in the forge, the grains begin to grow larger. Large grains are weaker and more easily fractured. Normalizing to a temperature below the forging temperature will re-form smaller grains. Grain flow refers to the re-orienting of the grains to follow the movement of the metal, usually this grain flow is parallel to the surface. The grains in steel have nothing to do with the "grain" seen in wrought iron which is the combination of pure iron (which does have grains) and the silica inclusions (which doesn't have grains).

SJeane, we will keep you in our prayers that your loss will become a gain. When God closes a door, he always opens a window; keep you eyes open for new opportunities.

SRT02, don't bother with oil quenching. Several things control the hardness of the metal: 1. Carbon Content 2. Dissolving all the carbon in the austenite before you quench it. 3 The speed of the quench; water is faster than oil and will get you a better hardness with low carbon. Normalize the blade first, then heat a bit HOTTER than non-magnetic, water quench to room temperature. Temper not hotter than 200F. Don't expect the RR spike to hold much of an edge even if you get it heat treated correctly. A .30 Carbon steel can get a Rockwell C hardness of 35 to 50, depending on how much martensite you achieve. Now being new at this, may I suggest you read Blueprint 0078.

Bob, I own two anvils: a 170# Old World German Pattern with no cutting table and a 100# TFS in a traditional London Pattern with the cutting table. I ALWAYS use a cutting saddle. It is much easier to use a hold down to anchor the hot iron onto the face of the anvil and cut onto the cutting saddle. Both my anvils are free from nasty hot chisel wounds.

Well, I know the first time I went through the Ozark "Mountains" I was clean into Iowa before I realized I had been looking at them for the last 350 miles. I grew up at 6000 feet in Colorado and that didn't qualify as mountains. If you didn't pass out at least once a week from oxygen starvation, you were considered a flatlander.

Walowan, I like it. Nice design and fine execution. Yup, gotta make one of those.

Welcome, Zuk! I used to live in Calgary and I know exactly why you like blacksmithing: the forge gives off enough heat to prevent frost bite on those balmy Summer mornings!

HF is not the only place that sells Cast Iron ASO's. I believe Northern Tool and others sell "Heavy Duty Cast Iron Anvils". Right. Just remember, give the anvil a tap with a small hammer before you buy it. If it rings it is either steel or cast DUCTILE iron (which, works well for an anvil if it is heat treated). If it goes "Thok", it is cast iron and no good for an anvil. Makes a good glue weight, though.

I have used rosewood, cocobolo, etc and found that after sanding to about 280 grit, I can start with steel wool. I end up with XXX fine. After getting rid of the scratches, I just finish with paste wax and buff it up. Yeah, it darkens some. Oh, really nice knife, too. Congrats!

Earl, I use a Lincoln Pro Cor 110. It is a flux core welder that can be converted to full mig but why bother? I use it a lot more than my AC 225. If you are welding thicker stuff, pre-heat it and it will penetrate better.

Steel does display different properties in different directions. Think of it as plywood. Pull with the grain and it is pretty strong. Pull across the grain and the strength is less. And Dodge is mostly correct when he says different places in the strip have different properties. The biggest difference is on the leading and trailing ends as opposed the the center of the strip. Now differences in properties in plate are less noticeable since the lead and trailing ends are closer together.

The Jominy end quench test has been so well documented over the many years it has been used that, today, the results can be accurately calculated from the chemistry alone. As TASMITH points out, this test is designed to generate a curve of the hardness vs depth in a quenched steel. This is used to determine the hardenability of the steel. Also see BP 0078 for further explanation.

Yeah, I had a few Ti plates and screws put in my back and it cost me $200,000....

Alexandr, wonderful work!

I had to shut everything down to go get my son a suit. Gonna wear it once for his Nissan interview but the school said he had to have a suit. OK, got him an off-white suit, blue shirt, yellow tie; looks like a pimp but he likes it. Then I ask the big question: are your seat covers clean enough to wear a white suit when you drive to school? Deer in the headlights look. I had to smack him with his new shoes when he asked for new seat covers.

m_brothers, the regulator did not have the gage installed, had to dope and nipple the hose and the bottle connector. No, not a big deal but for $425, I kinda expected the forge to be fully assembled except for the burners. OK, I got the ITC dried out and fired the forge. Needle valve is REALLY hard to turn but got it fired. The dragons breath is incredible! Walk within a foot of the forge opening and you burn the hair off your arm. The website said "guaranteed to reach welding heat". Is that inside or outside of the forge? Yep, I am well accustomed to an rather anemic Whisper Baby but the amount of heat coming out of the forge is really incredible. I see why people recommend the idler valve. Gonna build one of those, for sure. I only ran it about 15 minutes and it got to a high orange heat. Will try for yellow later or tomorrow. Yeah, the concentration during the sermon tomorrow is gonna be a challenge. Hope he doesn't preach on Hellfire and brimstone or I'm sunk.