Hey, I went to Brian Brazeal's tool workshop and we made a hammer. We did not quite get to the heat treat part. Does anyone have the basic plan for that? I think this was 4340.
Do I need to Quench and temper?
Or just temper?

Regardless does anyone have the procedure?

I am itching to hit something with this hammer head.

obviously, if brian chimes in, listen to his advise but... I seem to remember from his posts and photos that he hardens the hammer in oil. And then he does the finising grind. And then he heats up a drift to red and puts it in the eye of the hammer. then he puts a new drift in the eye... and after a few drifts, it should have a purple temper on the cheeks and a straw temper on the faces!!
hope that helped... look at this for more info http://www.iforgeiro...__1#entry131375

alec

obviously, if brian chimes in, listen to his advise but... I seem to remember from his posts and photos that he hardens the hammer in oil. And then he does the finising grind. And then he heats up a drift to red and puts it in the eye of the hammer. then he puts a new drift in the eye... and after a few drifts, it should have a purple temper on the cheeks and a straw temper on the faces!!
hope that helped... look at this for more info http://www.iforgeiro...__1#entry131375

alec

Absolutely I would take Brian's advice. I was just being in a hurry as I know he is in conference all weekend and I was in the shop and wanted to hit something :D

when I went we 4140 and 1045 heated both faces pointed down till the whole hammer head was red then tossed in a bucket of water and cooled then did the grind then used a couple on eye mandrels heated read to run the color to straw on the faces (takes a couple of heats) rubbed peanut oil on the hammer to cool it down

Alec's post is what we did when i visited Brian.

Hey, I went to Brian Brazeal's tool workshop and we made a hammer. We did not quite get to the heat treat part. Does anyone have the basic plan for that? I think this was 4340.
Do I need to Quench and temper?
Or just temper?

Regardless does anyone have the procedure?

I am itching to hit something with this hammer head.

Borntoolate, you finished too late and left too early.
After forging, grind the faces and champher the smaller side of the hole where the handle goes in, then harden, regrind and polish, temper, handle, and then hit.

We used 1045 for those hammers, so harden in water. I take my faces beyond nonmagnetic to orange where there are no "shadowy" areas on the faces. Heavier scale will develop at that heat, so don't confuse that with the "shadowy" area, and don't take it to or beyond yellow. If you do overheat your hammer and burn it, just start over and make another one. Once the hammer is up to heat quench in at least 5 gallons of clean water agitating very aggressively until it is cool. Now you can give it a finish grind and polish, and temper like the link that Alec S posted.

Thanks Brian and others. Guess next time I need to pay closer attention to the material. I had that wrong.

For anyone going to Brians workshop I would suggest that you might want to take some notes. I found that he dleivers a lot of info pretty quick. More than I can properly store and readily recall after a few heats. Even remambering the sequence of making the hammer got lost. If I had just written down the basic steps in sequence that would have been useful. Then of course things like materials etc... Not to mention actually remembering something like the next day...

And LOL we did finish too late AND I couldn't stay the next two days so yes I left too early.