has anyone forged h13 steel?
i might have a supply of it and was wondering if it could be forged i want to make a slitter and drifts out of it

The tidewater blacksmiths website has a good write up for forging tool steel. Heat Treating Toolsteel - Tips - Techniques & Useful Information

I have forged lots of H13. It is pretty forgiving, but fairly stiff, so large section sizes will require a power hammer. Forge in the lemon yellow range down to orange. Do not quench **EVER**. Air cool or slow cool. If you get any laps or cracks during forging, grind them out while the steel is hot, otherwise they could propigate during cooling.
H13 is a great tooling material and of the tool steels commonly used, relatively easy to forge and heat treat.

Patrick

Patrick has some great advice there. I've made and used a few punches from h13 and love it. I wish I had more. I think I have only had to dress my slot punch up once. I have however in the past water quenched my h13 punches during usage. What I've done in the past is quenched them after hitting them 6 times or so, instead of the typical 3 times like with a coil spring made tool. Is this a bad practice? I haven't had any problems with it yet..

I usually try to make a distinction between "quenching" and "cooling". To me, quenching implies at least a red heat. I used to "cool" my H-13 punches in hot tap water, even when slightly dull red, as it is less shock. Never had any problem with that and I was punching around 200 holes per hour.

Grant,

Yes, in that sense I guess I mean cooling, not quenching.. Thanks for the feedback.

ok thanks for the feedback i work in plastic extrusion and the old dies we use is h13
so ill pry have to torch cut them up to forge out. Would that effect the steel quality at all?

Edited December 19, 200916 yr by bigcity

One way you can cool H13 after use is bees wax. When drifting a hole, if you cool it in bees wax it also acts as a lubricant.

I like tallow for cooling and lubricating most of my tools from this type/range of steels

bigcity i don't know how big the molds you can get are but i have seen them from small to like a thousand pounds the big ones could be nice anvil steel and also the ejector pins in the molds should be h13 also as they maybe a nice size for punches

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bigcity i don't know how big the molds you can get are but i have seen them from small to like a thousand pounds the big ones could be nice anvil steel and also the ejector pins in the molds should be h13 also as they maybe a nice size for punches

the dies i can get are about 1/2in thick and about 10 or 12in round and are about 4-5pounds

You could hot-cut that size into strips and make some nice tools (chisels, punches, drifts, etc...).

That could also be cut with an abrasive wheel. If you torch cut it in half you could cut slices with a chopsaw and then cut the torchcut end off.

ok sounds good except i dont have a chop saw but do have a handled hot cut ill try that

I've tried to torch H13 in the past and I was not able to do it. If you can get it to work, then you'll want to grind the torch cut surface clean an flat before you forge. If you don't, the little laps and cracks that form becasue of the rough surface can propigate during cooling wreck whatever it is you've made. I've seen this happen with my own work and now I takes steps to prevent those laps from happening up front.

Patrick

Many high alloys don't torch cut worth a darn cold. Heat it to red and it will cut like normal. This is a good thing actually. Torch cutting heat treatable materials usually causes cracking. The cutting raises the local temperature well above hardening and the mass of the part sucks the heat out like an extreme quench.

I wouldn't expect hot cutting with a chisel to be at all successful.

ok thats good to know thank you:)