Hi all!
I have a ~4 foot section of railroad track, I am wondering if the steel on it would be good for hammers. Haven't spark tested it or anything yet, but I am planning on asking my chemist friends if they can sneak a sample in ;) Thought I'd ask here first. The top section is already halfway there as far as shape goes.
The markings on it are: Ohio Forge 9020-ARA-A-4-1919 Apparently those are measurements for the type of track.
New to these forums, but soaking up the knowledge here is like drinking cold OJ in the morning, can't get enough!
Arf,
Dave

I don't see why not. Seems like a lot of trouble to get a piece of steel for a hammer.....Do you have a PH to get it to the basic shape needed? If not you're in for a fight..... :ph34r:

Quite good for hammers; just an unfortunate configuration without the afore mentioned power hammer.


I am citing the Arema (The American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association) 2007 document, Part 2 "manufacture of Rail"

Standard rail steel:
.74 to.86% Carbon,
.75 to 1.25% Manganese,
.10 to .60% Silicon
Minimum Brinell (of unhardened surface) 310 or 370 dependant of grade ordered.

Low Alloy Rail Steel
.72 to .82% Carbon,
.80 to 1.10% Manganese,
.25 to .40& Chromium,
.10 to .50% Silicon
Minimum Brinell (of unhardened surface) 310, 325, or 370 dependant of grade ordered.
My document shows the following breakdown for grades:
SS = standard strength (brinell 310)
HH = Head Hardened (brinell 370)
LA = Low Alloy Standard Strength (brinell 310)
IH = Low Alloy Intermediate (brinell 325)
LH = Low Alloy Head Hardened (brinell 370)

welcome to the site
you will find the amount of time and fuel you will burn through will cost you more than just picking up a piece of steel from a supplier of the size, shape and chemical composition you want to start with. and a warning about Rail road stuff it is against the law to pick it up on the right of way.

Thanks for the help fellas!
Actually with the blue knife I can have a piece off the top without much trouble that has a nice oval cross section, we'll see how much fight it gives me.
I acquired the piece off Craigslist, was going to make an anvil with it until I found a deal on one of those also, so now I have to figure out what to do with 6 feet of the stuff. Good times!

rr rail can make an excellent hammer...with a lot of work and especially proper heat treat. It's a good exercise anyways so go for it.

I have done it (posted in my gallery ) entirely by hand with very minimal tooling. I had only started forging about six months previous which probably made it way harder than it had to be. Excellent steel for a hammer in my opinion.

RR track cuts poorly with a torch the has something to do with the high manganese content.  Be prepared to do a good amount of grinding to get it into a clean shape.  It is also a bear to forge by hand been there done that.

Great effort forging that on your own. Good looking hammer. You may want to concider rounding those sharp corners abit, but then, perhaps it's a personal preference.

It sounds like a tough and cool project.  You might name the hammer "Orient Express" when you're done!  Course there's always Cow Catcher, Caboose, or 3:10 to Yuma.  Sorry I'm getting carried away.