I was fooling with the forge the other day...wanted to use an oldtime pick-axe for tools ideas.

What kind of forged steel are these made of. It was my Dad's back in the day..circa 1960's. He always bought the best tools so I'm sure its USA and a good brand. Very rusty of course.
Before annealing...it filed fairly easily, a bit tougher than mild steel, up to about 1 inch form the pointed/spade ends, there it is a super hard working end.

I annealed the center handle area to about 6 inches out from center for sawing. This material is very soft as annealed and saws easily. I run some welds with mild steel arc rod on it and the welds are not contaminated [weld puddleand final beads free of pin holes or gas pockets, not "sudsy" as high carbon steels?] but they are hard as welded/air cooled. No cracks?
Seems to me like a high manganese steel [rail stock, caterpillar tack shoe?] because very hard/tough welds. Even 2-3 layers of mild steel weld...bead is still very hard tough!

Edited July 3, 200916 yr by alfonso

That's a good question. I looked on the Ames site (a fine and long-lived American maker of hand tools) and about all I could find is "high carbon". Most OEM's will not tell you what they use but you can bet it is probably not very exotic so would likely be a simple AISI grade. Something like a 1060 plow steel would work fine if heat treated properly and the factory could have forged the heads, left them to normalize, induction heated the tips, and finally followed by quenching and tempering. Maybe the factory added some manganese to make their grade proprietary but you won't know for sure unless you get a piece lab tested.

Thanks for the info Hwooldridge: I think your right on just high carbon steel. I have an old Weise [1957] plow share point repair book that calls thier materials 70 point, 95 point, 100point carbon steels, and they were weld on's [back then they used gas welding and arc mild steel rods] with no problems...they never mentioned manganese. It just has been my exp in hardsurface welding that only the first layer of weld will pick up carbon and harden up, but on Cat track shoes, the hi-mang. just keeps admixtureing through the welds. Oh well, I can tell right now old pick-axe steel is a far cry better for hardy tools, chisels-drifts-and punches.

I have been waiting to find an old pick ax to make a drift. I just cant bring myself to take a good one and do it though. I was looking at one a while back and realized it would be very easy to make a drift for your handled tools, out of the pointed end.

I bought a pick axe head for $0.75 at a yard sale and have thought of making a two ended forming stake out of it, one end round and one square. Stakes are so expensive when you do find them and really expensive if someone knows what they really are, that for the price I could sacrifice the pick for my project.:cool:

LDW; I have made such drifts. It's hard to find one with nearly the right taper but they are out there. Antique malls are a convenient source. Flea markets can be even cheaper and have more without handles. Mine are NOT beautiful... but they work well.

So what did spark testing your pickaxe head indicate on the carbon content?

I was trimming the mushrooming of the head of a hot cut over the weekend and it must have be 100 point as it was positively fizzing with bursty sparks---my contribution to the 4th of July fireworks!

Bentiron1946; I picked up some old long sledge heads, one was an old spike driver and the other may have been a drilling hammer, that I plan to make stakes from by heat shrinking/riveting /welding steel shafts through the eyes and make medieval armouring stakes.

Old jack hammer bits work well for stone tools and as drifts.

So what did spark testing your pickaxe head indicate on the carbon content?

Spark test almost looks like mild steel, but very dark orange colored sparks like 4140, sparks do not flare and arrow like high carbon file stock. You can see the cross section view..to me it looks and sawed like mild or low alloy steel [annealed] Now that I think of it, I don't think a hi manganese steel will anneal this soft, and not work harden when filed or hammered. Must be a med-high carbon like 1060-1070 as other poster suggested.
I will post pics of any forging of this, once I get an idea what to make and how to make it.

Edited July 10, 200916 yr by alfonso
bad spel'n