Bentiron1946 Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 OK, well I have been making repousse/chasing punches out of 3/8" or 10mm hex keys and they seem to be working fine for that task. I have also scrounged up a fair number of other drift punches, cold chisels, other chisels and other punches to form into repousse punches. These items are easy to file and grind into the desired shapes, sand and polish. However there are things I don't want to make from second hand tools so I have purchased some tool steel, oil hardening in 12" lengths at a garage sale, along with two 3' lengths of 3/8" steel. Now these 3' long pieces of steel each have a piece of tape on them, one is marked piano wire and the other is marked music wire. Just what is piano wire and music wire? Are they able to be hardened or are they just some type of cold rolled mild steel? I have never ever heard of piano or music wire before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
781 Posted July 26, 2011 Share Posted July 26, 2011 Both are spring steel Cut off a short length draw out mark with a few notches. Heat to nonmagnetic and oil quench Using saftey glasses gloves ect put in vise with 1st notch sticking out tap with hammer to see if it breaks if it doesnt hit progressivly harder till it does or bends Go to next notch ect If it bends you need to try the same thing but water quench If something still bends it is not tool steel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bentiron1946 Posted July 26, 2011 Author Share Posted July 26, 2011 Thanks for the information. I guess that I didn't do to bad at fifty cents a 3' length if does turn out to be tool steel or spring steel. Right now they are dead soft, I can saw through them with a jewelers saw and file them with needle files. Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John McPherson Posted July 27, 2011 Share Posted July 27, 2011 Music wire is ASTM A228, a very high tensile strength spring steel. Specs are .70-1.00% C, .20-.60% Mn, very low impurities. It can be easily hardened up to 55-60 C Rockwell in small sections. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bentiron1946 Posted July 27, 2011 Author Share Posted July 27, 2011 The one marked music wire cut very easily while the the one marked piano wire is as hard to cut as glass with hand tools, WOW! I will need to use abrasive cut offs to cut it into short lengths and then anneal them. I did find a PDF on how they made music wire in the deep reaches of the past and it was kind of interesting that it was a carbon free iron wire that was drawn down through draw plates to the desired diameter for the particular note and then stressed almost to the breaking point. A very specialized trade developed just to make music wire and then when the pianoforte came along this pure iron wire just wasn't strong enough and they had to develop a high strength spring steel wire for it. The estate sale I got this at came from an old machinist that was in his nineties when he died. Most of his tooling had already been sold off when I got there and so just a couple of bundles of tool steel was all I got. I also found a source for music wire, K&S Engineering, they supply metals for model and radio control airplane builders, also sell to hardware stores. Any way they sell it already hardened in round rod and have instructions on how to anneal it and re-harden it online. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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