Make a froe from normal mild steel, say 1/2" thick ?

[apples]

I wouldn't mind having a froe to use from chopping up wood as kindling.

As I have no forge and want to make something easy I was wondering if I could just use a bit of flat bar, say 12" long and 3" high and 1/2" thick. I was thinking on the cutting edge I could run a bead or too
of some hardfacing rods. Then this would keep a hardened edge.

The other idea I had was to maybe weld on a strip of tool steel blank and then grind that to a cutting edge.

Any ideas?

Yes a car spring would be good but it has a bend in it and I don't have a forge to bend it out. Maybe a mower blade might work?

[Timothy Miller]

Mild steel is OK for making a froe, hardenable steel is better but not absolutely necessary. I have an old froe from the 19th century it is wrought iron looks like it split a lot of wood in its day and still going strong. If the tool deforms it can always be reforged back into shape.

[IronAlchemy]

I would say that tool steel is to be avoided especially if you want to forge this by hand. Mild steel will hold up fine for this use. Also, 1/2" is overkill. You can get by with 1/4" stock but I usually use 3/8" x 1 1/2" to start. There are a few tricks to making one. Have a look at the step by step instructions on the net. Froes look simple but there is quite a bit of forging in doing the bevel, a socket and a forge weld.

Since you don't have a forge yet, you can substitute some grinding and welding. If you go that route, I would use 1/4" stock or less, grind a blunt bevel and weld on a piece of pipe for the handle socket. If you do a search for froes on the Internet, that is what you will mostly find.- Doug

[HWooldridge]

If you don't have a forge to bend an eye it will be difficult to hang on to the blade and 1/2" thick is way too beefy. I think the car spring idea would work better but you'll need a pair of vise grips to hold it.

If all you want to do is split wood then a maul would fit the bill just fine.

[pkrankow]

Just use the eye end of a leaf spring, and live with a slight curve. The tool is only about 10 inches long. Stick the handle in the eye.

Phil

[Ten Hammers]

The problem with that is, the eye ain't tapered and have no real way to hold it in other than with a shouldered handle (like a maul handle). I agree, 1/4 would work. Wrought froes split a lot of stuff over the centuries simply because they had the right wedge angle.

[Big Lake Forge]

just build a brick forge and us a blowdryer. or make a bellows

[Big Lake Forge]

then use wood for the fuel

[ThomasPowers]

my wife splits kindling for our wood stove with her froe---had one before I married her in fact. Her's was just a straightened bit of leaf spring. Eye is not welded shut or tapered. I mounted a handle in it and wedged it like I do a hammer handle and it's worked fine the last 27+ years.

Might talk with a local spring shop to see if they can get you a piece of scrap---might even straighten it for you as they "have the technology". If not you can anneal it with BBQ charcoal and straighten it. (actually you can get real chunk charcoal and pile it high and use a blowdrier to blow it and heat and straighten it yourself using a curbstone as the anvil (or a flat weight, chunk of rr rail, forklift tine, etc...) Heating to non magnetic and letting it cool in still air would be all the heat treat a froe would need too!

Or I bet you could find an Aussie smith, there are several on this forum, who could help you out and try to lure you over to the dark side....(working hot metal)

[apples]

So I quickly made up a Froe using a bit of 5mm flat bar 40mm wide and about 1 foot long.

I welded on a pipe for a handle and went to try it out. The darn thing bent like a banana, and the handle ripped off. I read online that some guy makes his froe out of normal
mild steel stock, which is what I did.

I guess I'm going to have to use some harder stuff hey. What should I use? I will want to arc or mig weld it to a metal pipe for a handle as well.

[jmccustomknives]

I would go to a wrecking yard (I'm asuming you have those there). My '87 toyota pickup has leaf springs that are pretty much strait, I think they would work fine. Leaf springs that are strait aren't that uncommon, you just have to look for them.

[IronAlchemy]

Kudos for giving it a go and thanks for sharing back with us. Nice idea to just use pipe as a handle.

Since there are a number of us who have used similar froes for many years, let's look at what could be the issue here.

1. I think your material is on the small side. 6 x 50 might give you better luck and would be closer to the Imperial dimensions some of us were likely thinking in.
2. Clearly, there is too much stress on the blade connection to the pipe. It looks as if the wall of the pipe failed, not the weld. Since the froe is used to rive using the handle as a lever to pry the wood apart, this area takes a lot of stress hence the rolled eye design in traditional froes. Looks as if you would need a heavier walled pipe to take that stress.
3. What kind of material are you splitting? A froe works is free splitting woods like oak or pine. There are definitely woods it will not work for like elm or sweet gum. I also use a fairly light maul, maybe a few pounds max. It should not take much effort.
   

I'll make one up with these lighter materials in the shop this morning just to confirm that I am not just talking through my hat.

- Doug

[apples]

Yes this was a quick knock up job to see how easy or hard it would work for splitting some firewood. Yeah the pine timber pallets I use for kindling some of them I can split into match stick size thickness if I want. Yet the hardwoods here (Australia) the gain is not as straight as the pine. But it did split a heavy chunk of timber so I am pretty impressed so far.

Well if I can find a straight leaf spring that will be the go, or a 1/4" thick mower blade maybe too. There might be an old leaf spring lying around at work (trailers) I can get, otherwise a might go to a scrap yard. Will I be right to mig weld using normal wire the leaf spring to a metal handle? I think what most do is burn out the bushings and the stick.the handle in there.

[apples]

Well I have made a rocket stove and am working on getting a car heater motor fan for a blower. Then I can get it red hot. Btw I did make a froe quickly, you will have to find the thread in the axe forum. Called "my froe is a no go" I think. Did not work, going to need a spring I think.

[pkrankow]

Well I have made a rocket stove and am working on getting a car heater motor fan for a blower. Then I can get it red hot. Btw I did make a froe quickly, you will have to find the thread in the axe forum. Called "my froe is a no go" I think. Did not work, going to need a spring I think.

Seems like digging a shallow hole in the dirt and using some iron pipe on the blower to make a side blast forge would be more effective than modifying a rocket stove. That is just my thought though.

Phil

[ThomasPowers]

The old real wrought iron froes I have seen were all quite heavy stock at least 6mm or even greater and were tapered from the top to the edge so most of the splitting is done by hitting it straight down and the levering was only to pop the split piece off---they were essentially a long splitting wedge.

If you are going for a thin piece and having the handle do a lot of the splitting then a stronger alloy---like leafspring is probably needed.

[Timothy Miller]

The old wrought iron one I have is 2 3/4" wide and about 5/8" thick at the top tapering conterminously to the edge. It is also thicker near the eye. The eye is wrapped and forge welded. What you made bears little resemblance to a traditional froe. Not that you have to make it this way but it is a proven design. Its hard coming from nowhere and falling upon a workable design.

[petere76]

Made a froe not long ago to split cedar planks for "planking fresh salmon".

material was a truck leaf spring at .625 in x 2.5 in. Annealed first , forged tapered blade to shape. welded on a socket for a hared wood handle, (E- 7018, with pre heat) , Heat treated as I would a knife. Works well for its intended purpose. Note that I use a hard wood mallet as opposed to a hammer when spliting. All the reading I did on old time Froes indicated they used hard wood mallets. Good luck,

Peter

[petere76]

I posted this info on another thread. To make a Froe use a leaf spring, You can weld on an eye by heating the stock and using e-7018 rods. After your forge or grind the rdge, heat treat like any tooling. Use a wooden mallet as opposed to a hammer on the froe. I put the pics on the other thread with froe in the subject.

Peter

[Smallchangerain]

I forged one using leaf spring. It was only my second forge weld with my new (beginner) shop. The eye held up great, and i was really happy with the weld. however, the neck of the froe (the bit between he blade and eye) cracked clean in two. Some grinding revealed that i had a lot of micro cracks in the area. As far as I can figure it cracked either while I quenched it (the blade, which didn't crack at all was totally submerged in the oil, but the quench tank wasn't deep enough to submerge the whole thing, I thought it would be fine but I guess maybe not), or it was stress fractures form forging the neck down. 

I made it without doing any research, and now that I've looked into it I've seen a few Youtube videos (including good 'ol Tojborn) where they are forged from mild steel. I was considering re-welding the blade into a new mild steel eye, but now I'm thinking ill use mild steel and save the leaf spring for another project. So long as it doesn't warp while using it it should be fine. It doesn't need to be shaving sharp after all, and a Froe take a lot more abuse than most high carbon steel cutting tools should.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

6 hours ago, Smallchangerain said:

stress fractures form forging

Welcome aboard, have read this yet? READ THIS FIRST  It will help in getting the best out of the forum with tips like editing your profile to show your location and others that help staying off the moderators radar.

I have found a lot of micro cracks in leaf spring due to age and stresses they under go in the vehicle. One reason I don't usually make knives from them.

[Smallchangerain]

Hey, thanks very much! I will read that tomorrow at breakfast.

I have heard that about leaf springs, and I know there are better options, I just am trying to do it on the cheap side for now. The spring in question has produced a very reliable leuku, and the cracks that appeared were entirely localized in the aforementioned area that was partially out of the quench, and may have been forged too cold or otherwise over worked. You do raise an excellent point, there are only so many ways to polish up a xxxx. At this point it's all a learning curve for me, and I'm just happy that there is an identifiable issue with the piece, and that I pulled off an old school lap welded eye. I'll attach a photo tomorrow so you guys can see. It's so cool to have input like this!

[ThomasPowers]

It's possible to find springs with very few miles on them; or even to buy new "drops" from a spring repair place if you find one that still makes their own springs.  Places that do raising or lowering of vehicles often swap out the springs and due to liability they get scrapped.  Some folks will take a brand new vehicle and jack it up for 4WD discarding springs with trivial use on them. (I had a student that worked at a place that built EMT vehicle conversions from new vehicles; he brought me spring packs that had 19 miles total on them!!!  Depot to Dealer to Conversion shop, all in town.)

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

The micro cracks in used leaf springs are mostly near the center where the spring is attached to and closer to the axle. That's one reason we see so many of them broken at that junction. The outside ends are less likely to develop cracks.

[Cleave]

This weekend, I forged a froe from old truck leaf spring as well. 

I didn't measure but its about 3/8" x 3" spring steel.  I used the eye from the spring. 

Forge was just a few bricks and a side blast pipe on the ground with dry scrap wood chunks and a bit of "Cowboy Charcoal" from the store (that threw a lot of sparks).

Maybe the forge just wasn't getting it hot enough, but that was really stubborn to forge. At best it looked orange when the sun was setting or down. 

My cross peen was a little light and too "pointy" so I went to the regular hammers to do most of the drawing of the blade. That arced the blade, so straightening was tough to hang on to that thing since it was longer than the anvil. Finally I got my wife to hold the eye still and that helped.

So with shot forearms and small children needing daddy's attention, I shut down the operation for the night after flattening it out one last time.

Still, I didn't get the blade tapered how I wanted, it goes from 3/8" full thickness to 3/16"-1/4" on the skinny end. A lot of sparks later, its cut mostly straight and has a blunt convex grind awaiting a handle...

My last project was making a spatula from 1-1/2"x1/4" mild steel, and that was a lot easier to heat and hammer.

Do "real" coal forges heat more quickly and effectively than this?