8620 Steel?

[01tundra]

From what little I've found online, some say it's good for general forging, some say it's awful and belongs in the dumpster, a few say never use it for knives or hawks.....

 

Found a little infomation searching here, but not a lot.

 

I have a transfer case spud shaft from an old truck I used to have.

 

The shaft is about 6" long, male splines on one end and female on the other.  Probably 1-1/8" O.D. on the male end and 1-1/2" O.D. on the female end.

 

My original plan was to make a tomahawk for myself by annealing and forge welding the female end flat, but after reading the mixed reviews it sounds like it may be better to leave it in the scrap bin.

 

I talked to the manufacture and it started out around 0.2% carbon content and then was carbonized to around 0.8% with a Rockwell of about 60.

 

I guess my quest for some good hawk steel will be continuing.  I do have some 1018 from an axle shaft that may work OK, it's about 1-1/4" O.D. 

 

So is this 8620 worth attempting to make anything with?

[njanvilman]

It reads like the carbon content will be too low to do effective heat treating.  I would go with the axle shaft.

[jmccustomknives]

Scrap it.  As far as automotive stuff goes, find a leaf spring.  It will make a much better cutting tool.  Any "found" steel can be a crap shoot.  The nice thing about the leaf springs is you'll usually have plenty to work out the heat treat.

[Charles R. Stevens]

The real question is what the "86xx" stands for. Crome dosnt like to forgeweld, so if its cromemolly forgewelding is out unles your really realy good.
Is the axle realy 1018? If it is you should plan on steeling your axe. This is a good use for the above mentioned spring.
Truck axles are usualy more alonfg the line of 6040, wile spring, torsian bars and anti-sway bars are along the lines of 4060 (or what ever was cheapest that would do the job long enugh to get out of waranty)
Either make prety good axes. If you are planing a rap and weld insted of a punch and drift axe remember most aut spring has crome in it and it dosnt like to stick to its self, either use the spring as the edge or use an old file as the edge So the spring will weld.

[John McPherson]

8620 is a low carbon chrome-moly-nickel steel that takes case hardening/carburizing quite well. Ideal for making wear resistant parts like this application, but for turning into edge holding tools like custom knives and tomahawks, probably not so much.

 

On the other hand, it should make a great cup shaped hardy tool!

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

8620 makes a good rifle receiver, it is tough.

[ptree]

Axles in cars and trucks up to group 8(Semi's) if the unforged portion of the axle is 1.375" or less it will be 1045H. if bigger at the unforged portion it will be 1541H. That is and has been the industry standard since just post WWII. I worked in the axle forging indusrty for 3 years and as late as 2005 that was the standard and to my knowledge remains the standard. It is based on the scanning induction heat treatment of those axles.

[astm.steel]

On 2014/12/23 at 4:20 AM, 01tundra said:

From what little I've found online, some say it's good for general forging, some say it's awful and belongs in the dumpster, a few say never use it for knives or hawks.....

 

Found a little infomation searching here, but not a lot.

 

I have a transfer case spud shaft from an old truck I used to have.

 

The shaft is about 6" long, male splines on one end and female on the other.  Probably 1-1/8" O.D. on the male end and 1-1/2" O.D. on the female end.

 

My original plan was to make a tomahawk for myself by annealing and forge welding the female end flat, but after reading the mixed reviews it sounds like it may be better to leave it in the scrap bin.

 

I talked to the manufacture and it started out around 0.2% carbon content and then was carbonized to around 0.8% with a Rockwell of about 60.

 

I guess my quest for some good hawk steel will be continuing.  I do have some 1018 from an axle shaft that may work OK, it's about 1-1/4" O.D. 

 

So is this 8620 worth attempting to make anything with?

I think 8620 steel is worth attempting, and you could find this post useful for you. Because it is with all chemical property and mechanical property of 8620 alloy steel. 

[ThomasPowers]

So you most likely would scale off the high C layer and end up with a mild steel hawk?  Is that what you want?   As I recall 8620 is used as a case hardening alloy.  Case hardening is a *SURFACE* technique they are not carburizing it to the bone so to speak---even blister steel often had some sap left in the center.