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Advice on forging a hardy cutoff


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Hello gentlemen I'm looking for advice on how to forge a cut off tool for the hardy hole in my anvil . Tried to make one out of a piece of 1in. Rebar , haven't given up looking for input . 

Frosty have to say thank you for IFI I have been reading post , and gained a lot of education . 

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When I forged the hot cut for my 1" hardy, I used a piece of 1 1/4" 4140 and necked it down to fit the hardy, then upset it to gain some mass at the anvil face before I tapered it down to the point.

I've never had good luck with rebar for things. Some can be super hard. Other pieces can be really soft. I've even had both in the same piece of bar. Rebar is often remelt scrap and can vary a lot in hardness. I've got a bunch of 1" rebar at the shop left over from a concrete job years ago. If it gets used for anything it will be art work where I want the texture of the bar to show, but nothing else. For tooling, I'll pay the small cost for good material. I doubt the piece of 4140 I needed to make mine was all that expensive. I managed to get a flatter, a set tool, the hot cut, a bottom tool for the hardy and still have plenty left over from the 18" piece I bought.

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Car axle can often be sourced for free or cheap and makes decent tooling.

Of course I made my hardy from a broken jackhammer bit.  All it needed was necking down the shaft to fit my hardy holes and a touch of sharpening now and then---usually after another class of beginners.

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Thanks for the compliment Sparky but I'm just a member like everybody, Glenn Conner is the owner of Iforge and does a huge amount of work keeping it up and running. Steve and Andrew are the two Admin guys I know by name but there are I think around 30-40 guys helping keep the monkey farm in bananas.

Those guys deserve more praise than I can say.

Ditto car/truck axle or Charles diagonal spring steel hardy.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Unfortunately rebar is only good for one use (buried in cement) Sirsparky we have all tried to use the stuff but it is not worth the effort put into it. unfortunately.

It's great for snakes. You already have the scales.

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There is rebar, and then again there is REBAR. The usual small diameter stuff that you run across is low grade scrap melt from around the globe.

If you can get drops from big industrial jobs like Interstate bridges and high rise buildings, the large diameter stuff is high grade steel, and every lot comes with certifications.

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Bridges, dams, skyscrapers, nuclear power plants: mission critical uses where there are deep pockets for liability.  They also tend to be sites where "scraps" are more carefully monitored too.  Please take care and go out of your way to get them through legitimate methods!

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Rebare is a lot like A-36, every one continues to bad mouth rebar but like A-36 wich we all use as "mild steel" it is most often a mix of scrap to acheive a minimum enginering specification. Much of the small stuff comes from Mexico (in the US) is medium carbon mystory metal and should be treated as such. Test it to get an idea how it preforms. 

In mexico and much of southamerica many horsemen will not except anything other than rebar shoes. 

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Thank you Mr. Stevens I haven't given up on the rebar just yet , just was needing some advice on it and the best way to proceed with it . Going to try to catch up with a local blacksmith and his wife tomorrow to ask some questions , so I can get a little more help from them and maybe see if I could visit and watch to learn more from them . I just started about six  months ago building my forge and working on little things to get started and knowledge . Have learned a lot on here from all the post from every one else and the replies that have been made .  

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A hot hardy doesn't need to be high quality steel. You do have to accept that it will probably wear faster and require more dressing during it's short live. Pick something that's a little too large to fit your hardy hole and follow Brian Brazeal's hardy how to. His is a VERY effective hardy profile.

Even mild or junk steel will give you a tool that will work for a while anyway. More importantly it's a pack of learning. Sure mild doesn't forge like higher carbon steels however the steps need to be done in the same order and learning sequence is important.

Forging top cuts and hacks are good exercises at the anvil with a useful, heck necessary tool at the end.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Just made myself a hot cut hardy out of a car axle just yesterday. I made it similar to Brian Brazeal's hot cut hardies, i.e. tapered shaft. I don't agree with the dramatic curve but put a slight curve on the cutting edge just to compare it to my straight hot cut. 

Axle is really tough stuff to forge, took me a while to get it done so bear that in mind. 

 

I found it a little soft once I'd finished forging it. Do people normally heat treat hot cuts made from axle? I though the steel was tough enough if you just air cooled it after forging but it seems not. Saying that it was scrap steel so I don't know what grade it really was. 

 

All the best 

Andy

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If I don't have a spring fuller or drawing dies for my power hammer (don't yet sigh) drawing a hot hardy taper on the horn with pein of my 32 oz. turning hammer is the least work. Isolating and drawing the shank is the first step. Always sequence the thin sections for last. Thick to thin.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Ok sort of the same question as Mac asked heat treat or not , got the rebar cut off hammered out and I think it looks good to me now doing the final grinding . It turned out to be what I think is good steal know its really hard , didn't like the length so cut it down a little after I upset to make it a little thicker . Never saw sparks coming off rebar before when cutting it on my band saw , any suggestions yes or no ??

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LOL yellow orange the Sam as the band saw , yes I did remove the scale before cutting it was a new blade . Just finish grinding tonight will post pictures tomorrow , learned a lot doing it now the big test tomorrow night . Going to see how it performes on a hot piece of metal . 

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There it is my hot cut off hardy , over all took about two and a half hours . There are a few things I need to change on the next one , but deal now that I have learned enough from this one . To go out and buy some good steal like DSW was saying , and build another . This piece came from a high rise I was working at 15 years ago , the steal might not be the best but I learned a lot doing it . For now for me that's what counts to learn and have fun doing it , 

thank you to everyone for their input , and let me know what you think and would change . 

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Looks more like a cold cut than hot, think of a hot cut as an axe wile a cold cut is a spliting maul. Remember that rebar can be neir any alloy, and is not nesisaraly consistant threw the length. 

In this case, "good steel" can very well be a truck axle (light, medium or heaxy) or the torsian bars from the front suspensan of a 4x4 IRS, peice of rail steel etc.

the trick would have been to upset in the middle to provide more meat ontop of the hardy, forge the shank to fit, driving it in the hardy to fit the sholders ( all 4 positions, assumeing you are not building brians locking fuller) and then fuller the base of the blade down to about 1/4-3/8" and forge down to the blade.

 

Edited by Charles R. Stevens
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