I welded a piece of low/mild carbon steel to a section of spring steel, as in makeing a nail header with a handle..........

The weld broke clean from the spring steel. The weld crystalized the spring steel and broke from it. How is that commercially made/store bought nail headers have a mild steel handle welded to the hig carbon header??????????????

They don't break free. They bend, not break.

Any ideas as what to do for a solid weld?

Most tool and spring steels like 5160 need to be preheated to a black heat (1000 F) before welding and then allowed to cool slowly after welding.

Did you forge weld it or electric weld ?

Yea......electric/mig. So I have to basically anneal the spring steel, weld it, then heat treat it to harden it, or leave it alone?

I love the way spring steel works for a header. The pins or nails literally bounce up out when you get the head forged. W/mild steel headers, they wedge down in tight and you have to litertally knock them out of siad header tool. I ant to keep these headers hard, just like the store bought headers with a mild steel handle.

Thanks guys, for any help.

Scott

7018,7018,7018............Or SS wire in the mig.

Scott,

No, you don't have to anneal the spring steel. It has to be welded while HOT. I guess I should ask if you are trying to weld a button of spring steel to the top a flat bar of mild steel or are you just welding a handle to the side of the spring steel? If it's the former forge welding is prefered. If it's the latter then just preheat the spring steel and weld while hot.

What you are seeing is that when you weld high carbon steels there is a zone near the weld where the piece itself auto-quenches the over critical heated steel producing an area that is then brittle as glass because it wasn't tempered after "quenching".

To avoid this you preheat the piece and slow cool allowing the piece to either not make the nose of the hardening curve and not harden or to self temper if it does self harden. (see HAZ cracking in any welding text---Heat Affected Zone)

You should be able to heat treat after welding if you wish or may times the preheat is under the draw temperature of the heat treat of the piece and so doesn't affect it.

Yeah. After I typed that out, I thought, no, It won't get hot enough to anneal if I simply pre-heat the spring.....

Yes, a handle to the side of the spring steel header. That's it.

By the way, I can drill through this spring steel. I guess it isn't quite as hard as I thought. It can't be really. It has to flex under the load!!
Thanks a ton.I will test weld another piece and whack it a few times atop the vise to see how it holds.

Another thought is "why weld?" Header tools are typically small enough that drawing the handle out of spring stock is perfectly acceptable. Or you can create a feature (groove) that will allow for a wrapped rod handle that will hold the header. You could also upset a piece of spring stock into a hole in a mild steel bar, then make the header after the upsetting is done.

There are enough different ways to make this tool that you should not consider welding or not welding a limitation.

Phil

Yeah, my other thought was to clamp in place with the anvil hold fast. Place over the hardy hole and clamp in place. But, then I have to unclamp it if the object forged sticks a bit. A long handle makes more sense and that is what I have always seen; a header with a long handle.

If the header works like it has thus far, the objects literally bounce up after the head is forged. I suppose I could use my pliers to pull it from a header held in place atop anvil. But, I like dipping the entire header and nail/pin etc. into slack tub to cool it and pull it out with my fingers. Done it for years like that and is what I'm used to.