Dan_the_DJ

Much obliged. I had similar collapsing issues when I forged my first spear socket, Ill keep your advices in mind.

So I dont need any tools other than a hammer and an anvil? Ive watched tutorials on forging pipe tapers before, but nobody seems to be aiming in the direction Im leaning towards. And literally every video on pilum making mysteriously skips the ferule, which is mildly annoying. Could I per say, start from a square pipe, forge one side a bit wider by thinning the walls and then finalizing the shape by inserting a tapered bar stock of appropriate size and hammering the piece around it till it sits flush?

So thats what those things are called, thanks. I saw on another post that you used rr spikes, that seems like a lot of work though I havent done any forge welding myself, so Im stuck with forging out of a pipe. But I agree that would be the most logical method of production back in the day. Thanks for the info, Ill look around the forum to find how I might do that with the limited tools I have.

Nice! Which size stock did you use to forge these out, was it round or square? Also, did you forge that tapered iron socket that goes over the wood and holds the shank in place? If so, how did you do it? Ive seen people bashing away at square pipe and cutting to a finished product giving me no idea how they actually did it. Any info would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Thank you, Ill do my best

I was affraid of something like that... I guess Ill make it work through trial and error

I understand, Im doing this only in good fun, to see if and how well it works

You missunderstood me in the begining, I wanted to say that I would go about making the knife as you would a regular 1085 knife, with the exception that prior to HT, I would do the case hardening of the blade blank. Only after that would I attempt any kind of quenching and tempering, there is no point before the carbon is tucked in there But thank you very much, you have pretty much answered my question... My main problem will be uneven distribution of carbon. Is there a way to fix that? Maybe, heating the piece in an inert atmosphere to allow the carbon to difuse along the piece more evenly and without adding even more of the carbon to the surface layers, hence the inert atmosphere?

That is way beyond me sir I was thinking about making the blade blank out of mild steel alone, using stock removal/forging methods, then bringing it to its finished state before HT and then case harden it for a time to allow the carbon to penetrate as deep as possible. Ive been experimenting with thin pieces of mild steel, which soaked in carbon almost, or all the way through in the "case" hardening process. I personally dont see a problem doing it like this, maybe, after a number of sharpenings, some of the mild steel might get exposed on the edge making the knife unusable. Im interested if there could be some other potential problems making a knife like this, like maybe lower overall hardness of the edge, lower thoughness or something like that...

I have another follow up question... Ive been experimenting with case hardening lately and Ive noticed that thiner sections can indeed be through hardened if left to carburize long enough... So, my question is, in a certain scenario, if one can not get steel for whatever reason, can said one make a decent knife this way? Thank you for your time, cheers!

I might have been a bit unclear. The oven either leaves the blade too hard, hence too brittle, or just overtempers the heck out of them, and I end up with a softer edge. What ever I do, I cant seem to get into that sweet spot. I will try a differential temper next time, but about 1 cm from the business end of the blade, the steel aint that hard anyway, its because of the oil I use, I suppose. Its a bit of a slow quench for the steels Im using.

Is there a recommended brand, or a specific thermometer that I should get? Will this do? https://www.ebay.com/itm/CDN-ProAccurate-Oven-Thermometer-Model-DOT2/231833873789 Also, wouldnt a lower temperature make my already brittle knives even more brittle?

Hello everyone, Its been very cold for the past month or so, and I was forced out of my workshop, probably all the way till spring I havent made a knife or some other edged tools in a while, mostly because of the weather, but also because Im getting something wrong during the HT process, my guess being the tempering stage. I have to point out that Im using mystery steels for my projects, mostly leaf springs and old files. So I know the steel is more than adequate for what Im aiming for, but I fail somewhere along the way. Im also using mostly hand tools, with the exception of one angle grinder, and one bench grinder... I will now explain my process at going about to make a knife, feel free to correct me with anything that seems wrong to you. The method I use is stock removal: 1) Annealing the selected piece 3) Cutting the shape with an angle grinder/hacksaw 4) FInal shaping and bevel cutting with a file, rarely grinding I need to point out that Im very careful not to overheat the steel doing these two steps 5) Heating to non magnetic in my charcoal forge, counting to about 20 and then quenching in some industrial oil that doesnt seem to flash what ever you put in it I do not usually do normalization, because most of the time Im so excited and nervous about the quench that I simply forget to do it. Nevertheless, I have yet to pull out a warped or cracked piece out of the oil. I dont know, for the life of me, how have I managed to do this, but sure is great 6) Checking for warps, cracks and hardness Again, I seem to have the fortune of not having any visible warps and cracks, and the blade always seems to get hard enough to make the file skip across it... 7) Cleaning the surface and tempering I do my tempering almost immediately after the quench, on the coals, waiting for some pale straw color to appear on the edge, when it does, I simply remove the piece and let it air cool. Sometimes I have to hit it with a sprinkle of water if I heated too much, but the color has yet to escape from me using this method. When I arrive home, which is normally at dusk, I do another tempering cycle in my kitchen owen, at 200c, or about 400f for an hour, hour and a half without preheating. I get that the oven is not accurate, but from the patches of straw and purple color that it produces its really difficult to judge what the temper did to the knife. Maybe its just the surface getting hotter than it should and the interior is getting a somewhat different temper, but I have no idea really... Because of this, I have since stopped using the oven for tempering, until I get some kind of a oven thermometer or what not. Any recommendations on that front? Anyways, I will show you some pictures of the 3 knives I made, the smallest one, tagged bird and trout knife, fared the best, though the temper from the oven left an almost black finish, I recon that has to do with the oil not being removed from the surface, but in strong light purple and straw hues were visible. The edge is not as hard as I would want it, but at least it doesnt bend or chip, its ok for the tasks it was intended, just needs a bit more regular sharpening. The second knife, tagged mini survival knife in the albums, also tempered in the oven, is by far my most used knife, it has gone through hell and back, was abused like there is no tomorrow, and when it comes to the outdoors, there is nothing the knife cant handle. Except for when it comes in contact with metal... If that thing touches, god forbid, a stainless steel can, the edge is done for, this is even a problem with regular beer cans which are made of aluminum. The edge is so fragile then, I can not explain it. But when it comes to wood it can cut down a tree the size of ones leg and still shave after that... Can someone please explain me what the heck is going on there? I also managed to break the tip while throwing the knife into a board. My guess is, that the knife was thrown at a bad angle, and considering its weight and the immobility and durability of the target, the tip simply could not handle the forces. Lastly, there is the third knife, tagged as survival knife, the largest and newest of the bunch, and the only one made from leaf spring steel and tempered only on the coals, 1 and 2 were made out of files. My guess is that this steel didnt get as hard as the file knives to begin with, and topping that with a loner quench, for some deeper straw, it turned out very, very soft... This knife was also tempered on the coals, with some good pictures of the results. It is the softest knife of the bunch, the edge bent on one spot after some light chopping. And the sharpness was lost overall to the point of not being able to cut pretty much anything. The geometry of the edge is even done with more blunt angles to accommodate for it being softer, but with no avail... I also need to say that I recently tried taking a file, and just tempering it at 200c, or 400f, to see how it would turn out, and I have to say, Im quite pleased with it, it can cut nails in half without suffering any deformation or chipping. The HT on that thing is truly beyond my capabilities... The only limiting thing about this method is that there is only so much space on the file, and the knives I can make with it are therefore limited in width, length and curvatures... What Im asking, I guess, is to help me improve my HT for the better, without having to spend money on expensive equipment. Sorry for the long rant, I hope that you can understand a newbies concern Here are those pictures: https://imgur.com/a/erLW3 https://imgur.com/a/5Prj6 https://imgur.com/a/kyEro37

I dont use coal though. Im working with charcoal, cause I can make it in bulk, or just buy it if Im feeling lazy. I could try coal, but its a bit more of a hustle for me, and If I change fuels, Ill change to propane, way cleaner in my opinion. Charcoal served me great so far, Im experimenting with forge welding next, which might prove difficult with charcoal, but should be doable... The spring was a success by the way, its a bit sluggish, I might replace it with a proper steel spring sooner than I thought. But I need to complete and fine tune some of the lock parts to see if its usable or not. I forgot to bring my lead and sand box for tempering, and by the time I remembered I needed them, it was already dark, so I winged it and used the same method mister Gussler used in the video, with a hot plate. It worked like a charm! Thanks everyone for the help again, couldnt do it without ya! P.S. Plaster crucibles release sulfur fumes when left in the fire for that long. I learned the hard way...

I understand, its just, I wanted to try making it this way, just for the sake of it, to see what happens, I will make a proper spring from some high carbon piece of steel when I get the chance. And you are absolutely correct that Mr Gussler wasnt using case hardened springs, they are made from "imported spring steel" as stated by the narrator. A reference to the old days I guess, when people from the colonies imported that stuff from Europe. Its hard to get commercially available steel in my country, I have to find a dealer who will ship it to me from abroad, and most of the times they either dont do that, or the shipping plus taxes makes the trade not worth it. Or they just dont have what I need in stock. So Im pretty much stuck using mystery steel all the time. Thank you for your help, cheers!

Im not sure I understand what you described here... Again, Im not a native English speaker, so bear with me. The other things I understood quite well, thank you for the help. I am too making this as I go along, the only measurement I have is to fit the thing in the lock when its finished. Cheers!

Im sorry, English is not my native language, and my terminology is all wrong. I meant making high, or higher carbon steel out of that piece of mild steel. And Im quenching right out of the crucible, while the steel is still red hot from the carburising process. It saves me a step of reheating. By spring steel, I meant steel that is spring tempered I believe its the term? Usage wise, the spring Im making is for a mainspring of a musket, and I would very much like to know the Sn to Pb ratio for this kind of spring, If youre familiar with that. Sadly, there is no blacksmith community anywhere near me, its a frowned upon craft in my general area even, dont get me started on that, its that sad Thank you for your help, I will do some more research on the forum tomorrow. Im reminding ya all this is but an experiment, I will eventually use a proper spring steel for this purpose, I just want to go about and try to make it this way, compare the results later. Im so sorry, Ive read it now. Hope everything is alright? P.S. Ive just learned how to do multiple quotes in one answer, sorry.

Yes, Im familiar with that method, we even talked about it briefly at my university. In fact, that might be the reason I even tried messing with this in the first place... Hours, I dont know how many would the spring need, Ive been using this only to case harden some throwing knives and spikes made of rebar. But as you said, plaster tends to degrade, so I make it a bit thicker, that way it can withstand about an hour with no visible cracks. I havent soaked anything past one and a half hour, because there was no need, was working with very small or thin parts, 15x20x6mm for the lock parts and I only hardened the pointy end of each knife. Now, I dont know how deep the carbon diffused into the metal, but for those parts, it was good enough, I need to check that next time... About the lead, yes, I was referring to its boiling point, in this video, the gunsmith uses boiling lead, to evenly heat his springs and then quench in oil, after he proceeds to temper them on an iron plate over the coals... heres the video About that boiling point though, I guess he just eyeballed it, I mean, the whole thing is eyeballing it from the start, he says it himself. I guess having tons of experience helps too Lead is extremely toxic, I know that much, Im having trouble being near it when its only molten, let alone boiling. Dont worry about that, Im doing it in a special place, with lots draft and open space. I have read some articles regarding gun spring rempering, but still, lead or tin just feels like the easiest thing to do, not to mention it cant catch on fire, we dont want that! I will get banned from forging altogether I could try that pan of sand, Ive seen another video where a guy takes a pan and fills it with brass filings to heat blue a set of clock hands, the color was phenomenal. Thank you for your help, I will post my results, if there are any. If not tomorrow, then the day after, cheers!

Hello everyone, Ive been fooling around with some mild steel scraps I had lying around. Been trying to make steel out of them, by case hardening I believe its called. Well, Im not really sure, if its true hardened, could it still be called case hardening?? Anyways, it turned out successful so far, for my need of making a few parts for my percussion lock project, dont know the exact terminology... I reached the point where I need to make the big spring for my lock. So Ive been thinking, since my angle grinder is toast at the moment, and it would be a pain to saw through an old truck leaf spring by hand, could I make a spring by case hardening mild steel? I shaped and polished the thing, put it into a nice little box made from scrap rusted iron plates, filled with charcoal, flour and salt mix, and sealed the whole thing with plaster of paris(Its a little tricky, but it worked fine for me so far). While Im waiting for it to dry, I was wondering, what are your thoughts on this? Has anyone tried making a spring this way? Also, when I do indeed make the spring, be it from this project, or from a decent piece of spring steel and quench it, I would need to temper it of course. And since I had, lets say, a few unfortunate situations with the kitchen oven and not the best of luck with color tempering, I wanted to try a different method for my temper on this one. I recently started learning soldering, brazing and all that fun stuff, so It occured to me to try and use some of those solders as a tempering medium. Different alloys of lead and tin have different melting points, so In my head, I figured, I can heat up this mixture, and as soon as it melts, I drop my spring in and then just keep it there, maintaining the temperature as best I can. But, given that stuff is rather expensive to buy in quantities I need, I wanted to know if using pure tin or lead can cut it? Pure tin would be to my understanding too cold as a medium, with a melting point of 232c/450f, it might be fine for knife making, but no bueno for springs. While Im at it, would pure tin, or something else with that similar melting temp be good for tempering knives? It would really mean a lot, given Im banned from the kitchen now, and I really suck with tempering by color, and I dont really trust it to be honest. Pure lead on the other hand, melts at about 328c/622f, so that might be a bit too much for me? I really dont know, I have no clue, been searching the net for a while now and I found out that lead is used to heat things up to critical temperature, prior to quenching, but I wanted to ask if someone has experience with using tin/lead alloys for tempering? I hope you can separate some time to answer these questions, I want to know if its worth it wasting time on this case hardening, and more importantly to me, using tin/lead for my tempering... Thank you all, have a nice day, cheers!