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H13 tool steel heat treating, tool making


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Ta Grant
Will contemplate some of your ideas. I may if time forge up one of these blanks and punch it while getting some photos taken tomorrow so as you can see the process better. We use the hammer to punch these as after punching them we hold the tooll with the hammer to knock the hammer we are forging out of the tool with a sledge,(are you confused now). Then we in the same heat forge the octogan on both ends of the hammer. I'll post one of the hammers in its finished state any way, see if I can get some action shots tomorrow.
Ta
Phil

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Forgemaster,

For the work you are doing, you may want to look at using a steel like Vascowear or similar. This is a much more highly alloyed steel than H13, almost on par with a high speed steel. Normally you wouldn't use these grades for this type of work, but if you have the means to do a proper heat treatment and you design the tool to resist spalling, it will hold up even better than H13. I made a slot punch from this grade last year and punched through 2 blocks of 2.5" square wrought iron with it. The end turned red, but the square edge never rolled over. It was a great tool for that application. Unlike H13, this grade is NOT good for cold impact tooling.

Patrick

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Vascowear was made by Teledyne Vasco, but I believe they are no longer in buisness. I think a similar product is avialable from Carpenter Steel. If you do a google search for Vascowear you should find it. You probably could also use any of the commonly available high speed steels such as M2 or M42. Just make sure you get your tooling properly heat treated. I was aiming for a hardness of 50 HRC with my punch. This gives a good balance of hardness and resistance to deformation at high temps. Depeding on your needs you could temper higher for increased temperature reisitance. Make sure you DON'T heat treat too hard. The normal hardness range for these grades is pushing or exceeding 60 HRc and that is just too hard and brittle for forge tooling.

Patrick

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Way too iffy for me! Old friend of mine down in 'Frisco lost a smith using high-speed punches. Chunk came off the punch and went right through his heart. Dropped him like .50cal. Saw one in a big press one time being pushed into billet of M-2. The top end of the punch seemed to explode! I think they miss-judged and bottomed out the punch. Don't know how that didn't kill someone! My own experience with high-speed steel and hot work has not been great either. No, properly heat treated H-13 is hard enough AND tough.

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Grant/Ironstein,
I would agree that most of the time high speed steel is not a great choice for hot work tooling, but remember that I qualified my recommendation with a specific hardness -50 HRc. Even 4340 will get that hard and that is a typical hardness for anvil faces, hammers and hammer dies. In the tool I made, I intentially tempered to a hardness SOFTER than it would normally be used at since I wanted to pound on it. I also radiused the striking end. The reason I suggested this grade over H13 is that in some cases, such as the long, fairly narrow hole described earlier, H13 will get hot enough to bend in the work. Certainly bending is preferable to catastrophic, uncontrolled failure, but in the right applications I think that high alloy steels could safely be used. When you suggested press forging I envisioned a process in with the punch is pushed in mechanially or hydrallically. In such an arrangment, the dimensions of the dies would be set to prevent bottoming out a tool and you wouldn't have the impact loading associated with hammer forging. As you know, service failures are not all material related, but can also be related to tooling design, including hardness.

Patrick

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Sorry Patrick, I missed your second post. I do believe that even at low 50Rc that high-speed is much more brittle than H-13. I've had very good luck with H-13 and have never had a long punch bend from over heating, usually its just the end that gets that hot. I believe Forgemaster was using a setup with matching hole in the bolster, so bottoming out is not a problem.

I DO switch to H-21 for some applications, but have not had good experiences with high speed.

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I have a question.

I want to make drifts for doing the eye of hammers. What size do I need to have for material? I have access to drills and some very thick material (http://www.iforgeiron.com/forum/f83/making-anvil-13878/) in the shop I work. What is a good size eye to make? Can anyone post pics of their drifts and punches they use?

I do have some various sized tool steel from "Down hole" drilling bits and reamers (4145H heat-treated, stress-relieved steel), some of it from 1 1/4" - 3" dia. Unless I should just use mild steel.

I have also read that to make it easier I could drill out a start hole of about 5/8" - 7/8", but should the hole be off center, more to the pein side.

any and all suggestions / help / comments muchly appreciated.

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