has anyone used 5115 steel to forge anything?

got a good bit of it but am having trouble gathering any information regarding it

Google turns up a bunch of info, case hardening/air quench low aloy steel. RH60 outside, softer on the inside. Dosnt sound like a great tool steel but for structural aplications and machenery it should be the cats meyow

probably no good for blades then i imagine

Probbably grind the hard off real fast. 

Tho some times steel in thin sections dose realy strange stuff. Worth a try. If you can get more than a 1/4-1/2" of the edge hard and keep the core of the spine soft it might work. Worth a shop test

thanks for the advice Charles, got some forgin' to do

just paying it forward

Sharpen on one side only - single edged bevel like the Indian trade knives were sharpened.

Did not know that...

chisels, plane irons, carving/broud axes... Hmm. Hammer heads? 

what ? with less carbon than standard mild steel?  he did say 5115 ????? I do admit its slightly better than bronze for a blade, but could someone please explain the logic here, of telling the guy this rather than suggesting a good alloy to make these from ??

Didnt say it was, just looked up the specs on the stuff, self case hardening to RH60. Low carbon but what ever the 51xx is makes hard stuff on the outside of 1" blocks, no telling what it dose in thin sections. It might make a passable cuting tool in a very nerrow catogory. Might not. 

51xx means the alloy has alloy is 0.80% Chrome,  may as well make if from, paper,  ever get a paper cut? Edge wont last either but cuts real well.

Manufacture is claming RH60, in theory that should be hard enugh to take and keep an edge. But reality and theory being what they are...

said can be case hardened to... that means adding to the outer jacket.... can not beat physics.

Nope, they said it air hardens the outside to RH60. It self case hardens. Took me a bit to get my head around that. So obviusly "5115" isnt telling us everything. Personaly I would go with your trained insticts and my gut and say no, but the. Again just maybe...

I was confused about this also-there were different specs listed for case hardening and carburizing. I am interested if someone can shed more light on this.

 

Edited July 27, 201510 yr by Bo T
lost the quote I was going to use

You got me, hopfully our residental metalergist will chime in. 

i got the same impression when i read the specs on 5115, the pins i have are seriously hard on the outside anyway? was surprised to see that the specs had it at such a low carbon

the other pins out of the same mold are all H13 not sure what is with 5115 pins, but free is free so...

Edited July 27, 201510 yr by senstrom

Acualy Steve's book opend my eyes to the fact that Carbon isnt the only aloying material to make steel hard, dont have it at hand or i would Quote. Despite all atemps on his part and others to paint him as a bad guy Steve is the bomb, makes you think, makes you stand behind your BS or go home, but at the end of the day he loves to teach.

i get that impression from his posts

Senstrom, how big are the 'pins' of 5115 you're referring to? They might be fun to play with and just experiment to see what you could do. 

bout that big

A .8% chrome allow will "CASE" harden by forming chrome oxide on the surface becoming more wear resistant. The reason there is so much chrome in leaf spring is so it forms a chrome oxide case and resists wear in the stack. As it wears a new layer forms and chrome oxide on chrome oxide is relatively low friction.

When talking hardening a "case" refers to a surface layer of hard material typically for wear resistance. It means basically just what the word implies.

Frosty The Lucky

makes sense for the pins former life as a locator device when 2 mold halves meet

bout that big

That's much bigger than I expected when you said 'pin.' They definitely could be some fun to be had there provided the supply is large enough.

If you work in a mold shop, get some of the old ejector pins.  Most are H13 and make great hot-work tools.