Broken crowbar as stock

[theycallmefix]

Anyone ever made anything out of a broken crowbar?
I need to make a lightning rod for a Ben Franklin exhibit for the local library, and all I have that fits the bill is a broken crow bar.
I spent a few hours hammering on it today, and have it roughed out. Started by hammering it square, then drew it out to about 1/2 inch.
My problems are:
This stuff is tough. I had to switch to a bigger hammer, and now my arm is a little bigger than it was before. (No I don't have a power hammer, but I'd accept donations.)
I can't seem to get it to weld. I finally gave up and decided on just lapping the ends of the ring on the bottom of the lightning rod with no weld.

I assume that the steel was a little hard to begin with, especially since I managed to break the crowbar in the first place, but I expected it to get easier to work as I worked it.

I'm going to get it done, eventually, but it's taken about twice as long as I expected. I might have been better off just buying some 3/4 square stock.

So is this just a particularly hard chunk of steel, or are crowbars always this hard to work?

[ThomasPowers]

Crowbars are often a medium carbon tough steel, though they can range form mild to even Ti!

I sometimes use one I have for knife stock and often for tooling.

[CurlyGeorge]

I found one in a scrap pile at work, once. Someone had cut the hooked end off of it and it ended up getting pitched. I brought it home and worked on it in my forge. It seemed to pound out OK at yellow heat and I made a couple of small tools from it. That one didn't seem to be too hard, though. :)

[bigfootnampa]

They do tend to be pretty tough. They make good punches and chisels. I have made nice knives from some of them. As far as your ring problem you might think of doing a double twined wrap instead of welding. That makes a pretty ring... just draw out the ends to thin tapers and then wrap them on both sides of the join.

[Ian]

Anyone ever used rock/concrete breaker bars?
I've got two of them about an inch to inch and a half round bar by about 5 foot long.
I've already attacked one of them, cut the round point off one end and the curved tapered flat off the other. Bit of forging and welding and I've got a Round punch and slitting chisel for my flypress. Also cut two 3 inch sections and fabbed up a fuller tool for it too.
I inherited them so no idea how much new ones cost but they're two nice lumps of tool steel that'll produce quite a few tools

[theycallmefix]

Anyone ever used rock/concrete breaker bars?

I inherited them so no idea how much new ones cost but they're two nice lumps of tool steel that'll produce quite a few tools

Around here they go for about $25. I looked at buying one just to use for making some tooling, but I probably wouldn't have time to actually get around to it anyway.

[ThomasPowers]

I don't think they are "tool steel" but they are good steel for tooling!

from my files, (thanks to Grant Sarver!)

"Having been a manufacturer of paving breaker steel for many years, over time, I had spectrographs done on every other manufacturers steel. To the best of my knowledge, the only time an "S" series steel has been used is for specific applications and usually that was only .680 chipper steel. These are a commodity product and the finished tool sells for less than the cost of "S" series steel.

For most of the last century 1078 was manufactured specifically for this purpose. Essentially a high silicone 1080. Brunner & Lay (the largest bit manufacturer in the world) uses a modified 1045. Vulcan used 1078 for most of a century and more recently switched to 15B40, a boron steel much like 4340. This steel will spectrograph as 1040/1045 because the boron is minute and often overlooked. I made millions of bits from 8630 and 8640 steel. Many chipper steels are made from 9260, an AISI grade very close to S-5 in chemistry."

[KYBOY]

There is a certain brand of wrecking bar that a local tool house carries we have bought just for the steel.We get a good deal on them .They are about 36" long and made from 1" hex bar. I cant say for "certain" what they are made off but they spark like a good medium carbon steel. (1050-1060 ish') and get harder than a woodpeckers lips in a oil quench. They show a temper line very well at that..It makes a dandy hawk I know that for certain..

[rokshasa]

jack hammer bits are good for tools as well, i have many tools made from them including hammers , punches , chisles and some knives. that stuff has good rust resistance as well and its hard as um...well steel lol :)

[Jeff Seelye]

[quote
So is this just a particularly hard chunk of steel, or are crowbars always this hard to work?

[fciron]

I don't think they are "tool steel" but they are good steel for tooling!

from my files, (thanks to Grant Sarver!)

"Having been a manufacturer of paving breaker steel for many years, over time, I had spectrographs done on every other manufacturers steel. To the best of my knowledge, the only time an "S" series steel has been used is for specific applications and usually that was only .680 chipper steel. These are a commodity product and the finished tool sells for less than the cost of "S" series steel.

For most of the last century 1078 was manufactured specifically for this purpose. Essentially a high silicone 1080. Brunner & Lay (the largest bit manufacturer in the world) uses a modified 1045. Vulcan used 1078 for most of a century and more recently switched to 15B40, a boron steel much like 4340. This steel will spectrograph as 1040/1045 because the boron is minute and often overlooked. I made millions of bits from 8630 and 8640 steel. Many chipper steels are made from 9260, an AISI grade very close to S-5 in chemistry."

My shop came with a ton or so of moil points. Mostly 1" hex. I treat it as a medium carbon steel and make most of my anvil and forging tools out of it. Here's a hammer I made by upsetting a short section; I kept the hex shape around the eye because I think it looks neat.


Cricket's new hammer by fciron, on Flickr

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Pretty cool!