1084 instead of 4140

[strimbello]

I ran out of 4140 a couple of days ago, and before I could go to the scrap yard to find more I got iced/snowed in. Now I need to make some tools for a project (chisel, round and square punch, drift, etc.). I do have some 1084 stock left over from a knife project, and I was wondering if I could make my tools out of that. I know the carbon content is twice as high and the alloy metals are different, but what does that mean in terms of this stuff performing for tool making? Thanks for your help.

[JNewman]

1084 should be fine or even better for smaller punches and chisels than 4140.  A near by steel mill blacksmith shop that had a shop with 20-30 blacksmiths back in the 60s used 1080 for 90% of their hand tools (excluding tongs). 

[MAD MAX]

It will be acually a better choice in my unprofessional opinion, and will heat treat better and get much harder.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Just make sure you temper them correctly.

 

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many of the IFI gang live within visiting distance.

Just getting harder is not necessarily a good thing, it has to be a useful degree of hardness vs. brittleness. There are some really good books dealing with proper heat treat for tools though I'm afraid titles and authors escape me at the moment, "The Complete Modern Blacksmith" by Alexander Wygers is the only one. I'm sure a list will appear as soon as I hit post, it usuall works that way. Wygers' book is a great bootstrap yourself a shop and tools how to. He was primarily a wood and stone carver who traveled the world without packing all his tools with. He'd set up a metal shop from whatever was at hand and make his carving tools. He goes into depth about heat treating everything from a home built anvil to metal carving tools, sheep shears, etc.

Drawing the temper on 1080 is pretty critical to prevent blunting or picking steel shards out of your hide.

Frosty The Lucky.

[strimbello]

Thanks, y'all for confirming my suspicions, and thanks Frosty for the new user tips. 

It depends on how hard I can get it, but my plan was to temper the punches in the purple range and the chisels/cutters in the yellow range (on the cutting edges anyway). Does that seem like it'll keep me from getting chewed up by projectiles?

[Frosty]

I'll let someone with more experience advise you about tempering 1084 for metal working tools. I use yard/garage sale punches and chisels or coil spring myself. I draw the working ends of punches into the near purple and light straw for chisels and slitters progressing to blue on the struck ends. That is for commercial punch/chisel and coil spring as "raw" materials. Allen wrenches make fine chasing tools and temper nicely in the lt-med straw.

Harden by bringing to critical or non-magnetic and quench in the correct quenchant. Again I ask more experienced guys to advise on quenchant for 1084.

Do NOT eyeball temperatures till you have some experience! Someone says "cherry red" does anyone else have ANY idea what his/er eye sees and brain interprets as "cherry red"? When the term was coined say American Revolutionary period, cherries were more red orange than red. How about "white" heat? The SUN isn't WHITE hot and it's about 10,000f!

It'd be different if you and I were working the iron. I could say that's welding heat and you'd be looking right at it. After a few successful welds you'd have THE color in your mind and could call it whatever shade of yellow you want and it'd be a valid color. for YOU.

Heat treating is a LOT more temperature/time critical so use gauging methods that have hard values. Non-magnetic is a hard value, it applies to high carbon steels and doesn't vary or rely on judgement. It's a little below true critical temperature but is close enough to work for what we do, shop tools especially.

Frosty The Lucky.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Frosty