Types of Hot Work Tool Steels to Forge with?

[oldbrain]

Suggestions, I am owed some steel from a machine shop I worked out of...

I am looking to pick up some high quality tool steel, maybe a tungsten alloy or bainite grained... for tools, chisel, knives.

and 4340 cr-mo for shaft material...to be case hardened.

Am I on the right track regarding tool steel selection for forging?

Cheers

[macbruce]

If you're using good quality tool steel in the first place it won't need case hardening.........

[rthibeau]

Hot work tool steel......H13 is a good choice for punches and chisels and drifts.....I suppose you could make a blade out of it. 4340 is a good tough steel for hammers or anything like that. O1 is another good steel to have on hand and flat bars of it make good blades.

[Steve Sells]

Why worry about buying bainite grained anything if you are forging it ?

[ThomasPowers]

H-13 and S-7 are good alloys for smithing tools that get a lot of contact with hot metal---slitters, punches, etc

O-1, A-2, 52100 make good blades Many of the fancier steels require high tech heat treat to get the best from them, I would avoid them unless you have access to that.

[Frank Turley]

I haven't used S1 since my olden days of horseshoeing. I made all my hot-work pritchels out of it. It is a good, oil hardening steel that can be used for hot or cold applications DEPENDING ON HOW IT'S TEMPERED.

[ThomasPowers]

S-1 is also an alloy that does not profit from normalization according to the ASM Heat treaters guide IIRC.

I have a number of ex pharmaceutical punches made from S1 that I have been using for tooling.

[HWooldridge]

S7 is usually easier to find than S1; H13 seems to heat check to a lesser degree. It is also easier to heat treat. I have a wide thin chisel that I made from H13 several years ago - about 2-1/2" wide and 2" blade, tapering from 3/16" thick to about 1/32". It will cut through 3/4" square at a yellow heat in three good licks with a treadle hammer and can be water quenched from a low red.

[David E.]

On the subject of H13, I just bought this hot cut. While filing it to fit it struck me that it was cast rather than forged and seemed soft under the file for something claiming to be Heat treated. Has anybody here bought one or have any opinions?
I have absolutely NO experience of H13.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200656963131?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

[ThomasPowers]

Cast does not have anything to do with alloy; you can cast pretty much *anything*. I recall a smith having some H13 anvils cast.

Heat treated does not indicate if they were made harder or softer---annealing is a heat treatment.

When someone is using vague terminology you have to ask for clarification *before* you buy; especially if the price seems too good to be true!

[thingmaker3]

H-13 does not get nearly as hard as some steels do. Expect Rc in the mid 50's for as-quenched.

The claim to fame of H-13 is that it what little hardness it does have it keeps even when glowing. Stays in the upper Rc 40s even when it gets up around 1150F.

[David E.]

I know I jumped to the conclusion that the term "heat treated" in the context of "hot cut" would mean a degree of hardness, when, as you have pointed out it could also mean "full soft" or any point in between.
Interesting to hear of the anvil being cast in H13, my education continues apace,
Thank you
Thingmaker, thanks for that also.

[Ten Hammers]

Thompson rod ( according to the mfgr's specs) is h-13. Harder'n chinese arithmetic. Forges well and just heat to sweating hot and air cool. Goes through 1/2 square (with a hand hammer my case) in a couple 3 blows. This was a knockout rod from an plastic injection molding machine. Have used other spec'd h-13 and was very happy. I am aware of the rockwell scale as well as brinell but I use neither and really don't worry about them. If a tool from a known alloy (that would include sucker rod that has manspec numbers on it) forges into a tool and that tool is hardened and heat treated into what I need, and that tool lives up to my needs, I am happy.

My one handled hot punch was bought at an auction in a box. It WILL MUSHROOM if I get really rough with a 3 lb hammer on it. After I learned this, I re-dressed it and backed off to the junk hammer (cheap old crosspien from somewhere that may weigh 1 1/2 lbs.) I use to strike tools with and the problem was solved for a large part. The punch works great. Someday I'll run across some s-7 and I'm looking forward to that.

[Francis Trez Cole]

I made a hot cut chisel out of 1/2"x3/4" A2 it is air hardened and so far it has preformed very well under the hammer. I have had a chance to push it and it worked well beyond my expectations. I use a lot of 4140 and 4130 my metal supplier has a lot of drops so I pick them up when ever I go they put them to the side for me. they make great hammers.