A friend gave me a 3 lb hammer. It had lost its heat treat, so I decided to give it a go... Forge was running way too hot.

Yep, I burned the back of the hammer, melting the surface pretty badly. I think I already know the answer, but is the hammer a goner? I'm holding out a hope than in a thick piece of steel like that, maybe just the outside is ruined.

Thanks, guys.

Alex

Show us a picture of it, perhaps its not. You might just have to regrind it. What kind of hammer, and what part melted off? Maybe this will be a good softer hammer for striking hardened tools.

Thanks for the reply.  It's a Japanese bladesmithing hammer.  I'm not sure what kind of steel, but probably simple carbon.

 

It was only the back that got burned; the striking face is still fine.  Sorry, trying to figure out how to upload pictures.  Do I have to upload it somewhere else first to link to the url?  Can't seem to just add a normal file.  

All right, studying up on how to do this.  Will upload soon....

http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/36954-burned-hammer-1/

 

 

http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/36955-burned-hammer-2/

 

 

http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/36956-burned-hammer-3/

 

Maybe this will work?

Ouch. Looks like my first try at a cutoff hardy. Good luck!


Well, looks like a hammer. But you get what I mean.

Does anyone have any advice? My main concern is that there could be structural damage in the hammer near the handle, something that I wouldn't see after grinding.

I'm new to all this : )

Alex

There is damage to the steel. I am wonder about how it lost its heat treat and wot steel it is and wot was done to it.

This is my process for reforging old hammers and top tools.

 

1. Grind or hot rasp off the burnt steel, cracks, pinholes and shuts . 

 

2. Make sure you get rid of all of the cracks and inclusions.

 

3. Reforge to desired shape.

 

4. Rough grind or file to shape.

 

5. Normalize the hammer once or twice.

 

6. Heat to nonmagnetic quench in a light oil.

 

7.wash off oil. temper in my home oven to 500F for one hour.

 

  I have had a very high success rate with this method.

 

In the case of this hammer only heat treat the face do not harden the back end of the hammer.

Yep.  Being an asymmetrical hammer, the actual working part is unfazed by the overabundance of heat.  Grind off the bad parts and do the heat-treat from the start.  

Thanks so much for the advice guys. Any chance the damaged steel near the handle would break apart during use? (After grinding and heat treat, that is)

if the burnt steel is removed and the remaining steel is normalized to reduce grain enlargement caused by over heating you should have no problems.  

*always* a chance that any hammer might catastrophically fail in use.  Definitely normalize multiple times to refine the grain and be sure to wear PPE in using it---just like you should with any hammer.  Then if it fails so what?

http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/36979-hammer-re-ground-and-heat-treated/

 

 

Thanks for the help, guys.  Ground out most of the bad crud, normalized three times, and heat treated.  Still a few pits in the back end, but I didn't want to take off any more steel.  The balance still feels ok, and it has good rebound.