Tried forging with O1 tool steel for the first time tonight, got it up to temp, nice orange color. Banging along pretty good. Got it almost to 1/8 in and about an inch wide, and CRACK! out of nowhere i have this crack half way through the metal. never had this happen before on rebar rr spike or other junk metal i have used. am i doing something wrong could i have gotten some bad steel. the grain texture was very fine along the crack and pretty course everywhere else. broke a couple of pieces and found fine texture. am i working it too long or too cold. really frustrated right now. any advice of ideas. the piece was a 6 in cut from a 36 in O1 round from speedy metals.

thanks

maybe your idea of orange might have been my idea of red, because many tool steels don't like to get hit too cold, or they crack to let you know not to do that, Keep it hot, and dont try to get too many hits in it per heat, if it gets red, stop hammering.

Edited April 27, 200917 yr by steve sells

thanks will try to cut back on how long i keep it out of the fire and see if that helps

Light conditions in your shop can have a BIG effect on how you judge color/temp. If your shop is dimly lit you may be seeing orange where I'd be seeing red in my shop.

Until you learn to judge by feel and sound maintain consistent light levels in your shop even if you have to put curtains on the windows.

Frosty

O1 will crack if you hammer it too cold, it's pretty forgiving about temp other than that. Heat treating it, you want to normalize a few times and then soak at 1500 for 15 mins or more to get everything in solution before you quench to harden, then draw the temper back to your desired toughness ASAP to prevent post quench cracking from martensite stress