Hey guys- I am in need of some answers. I made my first hammer head out of some 1.5" round I had laying around. I spark tested it, and it was similar to some old punches I had, so I figured it was a little better than Mild steel. the hardening process didn't turn out well. I quenched with oil, then brought up to straw for the temper. Still soft. A relative of mine is getting me some D-2 steel. Does anyone have experience HAND forging this kind of steel? He said he can send it out to be heat treated when I'm done with it for about 2 bucks. I'm probably going to make a 2 pound cross or diag. peen somewhat in the Hofi style. Any advice on forging D-2?
JW-

Soft not broken? Normalize and then re-harden in water!

No help on the D2 here, sorry.

Phil

You won't enjoy forging D-2 by hand ! That is supposing you can at all.

Thanks Phil- That is tomorrows project. I would do it now, but I'm afraid my neighors wouldn't enjoy the sounds of night time forging.

Doc- That hard huh? Maybe I'll cancel the order. I wish now I knew someone close by with a power hammer. I could farm it out to someone, but then it wouldn't be any different from buying one off the shelf.

JW-

The D2 is a poor choice for a hammer IMO... too much carbon and TOO hard. 1040 or 1045 is about right 4140 okay. The D2 has some air hardening characteristics due to the very high carbon content and some of the other alloy elements... not really ideal for hammers. IF I did make a hammer of D2 I would likely normalize it only (NO quenching) to minimize the chances of it being hard enough to spit out chips in use. I have had some hammers that WOULD chip (acquired at sales) and have successfully fixed them by tempering the offending areas on top of the forge fire. Just in general it seems that medium carbon steels are preferable for struck or striking tools. D2 would certainly be classed as a HIGH carbon steel.

Comparing a hammer to a knife...

One has a great deal of surface area per unit mass. And much less mass.

Other has much less surface area per unit mass. And much more mass.

Cooling rate it a given media will be much slower for a hammer than for a knife. Try quenching it in water instead.

1.4-1.6% carbon, a ton of chromium, lots of vanadium and moly. This is a highly wear resistant steel, but red hard and it'll have lots of carbides when heat treated properly, which isn't great for toughness. As-quenched hardness will be around RC 63. Tough to forge, and far from ideal for hammers. Great for knives, though, if you can heat treat it properly!