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I Forge Iron

What sort of bed frame do I have?


BobStrawn

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So I am innocently minding my business making a jig for the belt grinder out angle iron from an old cheap bed frame. I cut sections, grind the ends to eliminate burs, no problems.

Then I chuck in a brand new mid grade drill biit in the drill press, and start to make a hole. I am using water mixed with ballistol for cooling and lubrication. Steam is being produced, but the bit and hole are staying wet. The hole just starts to punch through, coolant is flowing through the hole a bit, still it is all staying wet, when suddenly it is like skating on file steel.

check the bit. not dull. I try another bit, skates. I chuck in a serious and sharp carbide bit, and it skates. I have used some nice work hardening steel before, but this is amazing. I am going to have to fire up the forge and punch this stuff.

The bed frame is pretty cheap, if the old plastic feet and fittings are any indication. What sort of monster weird steel have I run into, and what should I be using it for? I may try making a rasp out of this stuff. It sparks about like O1 does. Seems a bit high on carbon, for a bed frame

Bob

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Yes, bed rails are high carbon steel. They have to be light and strong. I've known a few small rolling mills that produced bed rails and fence posts. They all started with old RR rail! Usually split into three sections or more, the bulb, the web and the flanges.

If you're getting part way through and then having trouble, then your drill is probably going way too fast.

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You gotta figure that there are some really big people out there and they sometimes engage in some, ah, rather bizarre "athletic" activities. Sometimes even high tensile is not enough. Not that I would know anything about that. So, how did you get those ring bolts in the ceiling, anyway?

Edited by nakedanvil
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Sixty Minutes (Aust version) did a feature on the ship graveyards of india I think, where it showed these ships being cut up by oxy, dragged ashore, cut up smaller, then rolled via a rolling mill into bars and section. These bars could be anything from crankshaft to hull to conrod you would not know or as Grant suggested rail. Mild Steel is not always mild steel despite what it gets sold as.
I've even seen towbars for pulling horse floats that some nut has made from bed iron. Now that was just like cherynoble powerstation, an accident just waiting to happen.

Phil

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Yes, I admit I had the drill press speed to high for tool steel. In my defense, I was drilling through a bloody bed frame. Who knew it was good stuff? Then again, as I dug through my piles of collected steel, I was looking for ridged and solid. I should have figured it was somewhat decent steel. Now I need to see how well it holds an edge and how it holds up to heat and hammering.

It would be neat if it were Corten, but I don't think this one is. I keep looking at some of the worse sculpture around town, wondering if the people who own the property are as tired of the sculptures as I am. I am tempted to offer to haul the sculpture off for them. This would be win-win, no more eyesore, lots of scrap corten!

I will try working it as if it were 1055. 1055 with an edge temper makes for a seriously tough blade. As I recall, it makes decent throwing knives, since it can take a beating. If it holds and edge at all well, it might make a good chisel.

Bob

Edited by BobStrawn
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Found out the hard way not to hot bend then quench bed steel. I had a short piece I was using both ends to make a bracket.. ..

Quenched both hot ends from bright red and promptly dropped the piece on the concrete floor.... Then I swept up the bits... who knew??

Thats a a hard way to find out about high carbon bed frame. Weygers makes mention of it... but Some of us were not paying attention to where the scraps were from....

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  • 5 months later...

I had fun with a bed frame today also. I planned on cutting some pieces to hold up the floor of a concrete slab I was pouring. I put it in the vise and started cutting with my saws all. I thought that it was going as smooth as butter. However, it wound up removing the teeth on the saw blade. I think I have some great material for a set of wood cutting tools.

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Drilling bed frames isn't too hard if you normalize it first. Just chuck up a non-plated 16d nail in your drill press, turn the press on and apply the nail to the spot you want to drill using a firm pressure keep at it till the frame hits black heat and let it cool slowly. A good cobalt bit shouldn't need this treatment to make hole though.

Frosty the Lucky.

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