ranger225 Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 i have a splitting maul welded to a piece of pipe.its been annealed and i reclaimed the egde and then heated the first inch of the edge to what looked bright red, or until it wasnt attracted to a magnet, quenched in warm water and noticed the edge was not all that hard as a slight tap on a piece of soft steel was enough to dull but not chip the edge.would a quench in cold water make it harder or could it be to low in carbon to get much harder.im afraiad to quench again and have it crack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 Note that you are discussing hardening not tempering. Tempering is actually making things softer. If you are willing to risk it I'd look into Gunter's "Super Quench". You might run the spark test on it with some known samples to get an idea of it's carbon content. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ranger225 Posted March 10, 2014 Author Share Posted March 10, 2014 i know about temper.just thought it shouldve been harder after a quench.magnet didnt attract so it was above 1300 degrees.it held up fine chopping wood.maybee i could reheat and quench in the snowbank but i dont want to cool tofast and crack.unless maybee it isnt too high in carbon.like .45% or so.ive done this with other mauls and gotten some much harder at the edge than this one.??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 you obviously have not read up on heat treating yet. there is a pinned explinations of a few things you should know in the knife making section. 1300 C is way too hot, 1300 F is way too cold. also snow is a terrible quench medium, and why edge quench, what did you think that would do ??? I am much to busy on another project right now to type about it any more. read there or not, its your shop :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ranger225 Posted March 10, 2014 Author Share Posted March 10, 2014 i just thought it shouldve been harder of an edge with a water quench.1300degrees farenhiet is the temp where the carbon migrates out from the body center cubic atom arrangement and it becomes face center cubic.the carbon gets locked out as the arrangement goes back to body center cubic and thats what makes the steel hard.im not a total dufas and im actually a welder not a smith.my knowledge of carbon steels comes from a welding side of view but thanks for your sarcasm.and ive read "materials and applications" published by the american welding society. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricJergensen Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 Ranger, Water quench is a pretty aggressive quench. There is basically no benefit to colder water. Water takes a great deal of energy (heat) to turn into steam. And, it conducts heat pretty well. Steam, on the other hand, doesn't take much heat to raise temperature and conducts heat poorly. Snow is not dense and immediately melts / steams away from the object and, having removed only a tiny bit of heat, is now not even touching the object. (Sorry, this movie trope tends to set us off here.) So, back to water. Did you swirl it around? I generally suggest a figure 8 pattern at about 1-2s per repetition. That helps you stay in contact with water, not the steam envelope you are creating. Did you quench it until cold? (Yes, you can use heat retained in the body to temper, but if you're trying to find out what 100% is...). A maul is pretty thick section relative to a hot slitting chisel, so the 10s ish that I use for a chisel wouldn't probably quite be enough to get full hardening. Non-magnetic is usually quoted as 1420°F. The ASME heat treating mobile app suggests 1580°F for hardening 1030. Too little heat will result in 0% hardening. One degree below austenitizing and you get no hardening at all. Too much heat makes for a less desirable grain, but you will get hardening. Not knowing what your metal is, I can't guess on cracking. Pretty hard to crack 1018. Still hard to crack 1045. If you really got it hot enough and it didn't harden, then you probably don't have enough carbon to crack. Given that you've done this with other mauls, I would suggest you just don't have much carbon in this one. If that is the case, it may simply be too little carbon to harden meaningfully. Super Quench as mentioned above (water with surfactants for improvement) is the fastest quench you can get cheaply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 I think the key here is it works good splitting wood...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forgemaster Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 How did you reclaim the edge, by reforging it or by welding it up. If you welded it, what sort of electrode/wire did you use. If it was just a MS wire, you are'nt going to get much hardness anyway. Not forgetting that a maul has a fair heat bank behind it to retain a fair bit of heat, as you are trying for a quick quench. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 Works good for splitting wood---but for how long? A.G.Russell once bent an Aluminum beer can in two, flattened and honed it till he could shave with it---just not for long... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted March 11, 2014 Share Posted March 11, 2014 i just thought it shouldve been harder of an edge with a water quench.1300degrees farenhiet is the temp where the carbon migrates out from the body center cubic atom arrangement and it becomes face center cubic.the carbon gets locked out as the arrangement goes back to body center cubic and thats what makes the steel hard.im not a total dufas and im actually a welder not a smith.my knowledge of carbon steels comes from a welding side of view but thanks for your sarcasm.and ive read "materials and applications" published by the american welding society. Actualy to harden we want the carbon locked in the iron "cube". But I already gave you all the information you need to get this to work, its up to you if you take the time to read it or not. and there was no sarcasm. But I admit things do not always come accross as intended in text posted on the internet. Your failed attempt to heat treat shows you did not know much about heat treating. I pointed you in the right direcction to find out more. One thing you missed in that manual is the topic on Austenizing temperature, which is also above 1300F and that is where we need to be, to prepare the steel for quenching. Either you will read the heat treating info posted in the knife section, or you wont. good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Splitting mauls aren't very high carbon steel or beating on the struck end with a sledge would work harden and start chipping them in short order. I've seen mauls that got skipped off a rock with a missed swing and had rolled edges for nearly 1/4". Nothing hard about them, not at all. As a side note, when you claim to know about a subject you'd just misused the terminology of, misusing more terminology in exactly the same way in your response doesn't look so . . . knowledgeable. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thingmaker3 Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Actualy to harden we want the carbon locked in the iron "cube". HORSE HOCKEY!! What part of "body centered tetroganal" do you not understand, Mr. Stells? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 At room temperature steel is in a body centered cubic structure. The cubes of steel have an atom at each of the 8 corners of the cube, and one in the center of the box. This is called ferrite. By heating the steel we can change the arrangement of the carbon and iron, into a face centered cubic where iron is at the 8 corners, and carbon is on the six sides of the cube. This form is called austenite. Quenching creates another form of steel known as martensite, where the carbon is trapped in the iron 'cube'. he said " .the carbon gets locked out as the arrangement goes back to body center cubic and thats what makes the steel hard" and I disagree with that statement. locking the carbon out is anealing There are many things I do not understand body about body centered cubes clearly. Such as why the carbon and iron matrix move around the way it does. But the details of How it happenss is what I disagreed with. His statement about the carbon gettingg locked out is wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 It is time to site references to back up your opinions. IForgeIron has many of the references, and many other references can be found on the internet. Post the URL so we can read your reference and better understand your position. BP0078 The Metallurgy of Heat Treating for Blacksmiths Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thingmaker3 Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 If "one dimension of the cube is longer" then it is not a cube. You want references? Principles of Heat Treatment of Steel by Krauss. Principles of Heat Treatment by Gossman. Mechanical Metallurgy by Dieter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhitee93 Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 If "one dimension of the cube is longer" then it is not a cube... True, martensite is technically body-centered tetragonal. I suspect Steve had 'cube' in quotes to keep the conversation from becoming more pedantic that it already has... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martensite Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Sells Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 It appears someone apparantly skipped over the talk about the point being about where is the carbon going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefflus Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 What on earth... -Have you spark tested it yet? The most promising lead yet might have come from EricJergensen and Frosty, it might be a low-medium carbon steel. -Also what forgemaster said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Coke Posted March 12, 2014 Share Posted March 12, 2014 Greetings All, Sounds to me like a lot of TO DO over a 20.00 splitting maul.. I would just go buy a new one and save my energy for a real project... 15 minuets at the anvil would yield an item that would sell for 20. Go figure... My 2c Good luck on this one Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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