February 2, 201610 yr Team. I have a couple of mild steel rods I was thinking of making a rounder and other tools from. Now it is quite soft. Do you think it would work when hardened and annealed? They are about 3 inches in dia.
February 2, 201610 yr well pretty much the definition of mild steel is that it doesn't harden and "hardened and annealed" means harden and make as soft as possible. I think you need to learn a bit more of the basics before doing this project. Get a medium carbon steel for the hammer(s) and learn proper heat treat for it.
February 2, 201610 yr Author Perhaps I should elaborate on the steel in question. Extremely heavy pin used in a commercial truck scale. By mild I should have said suft. In spread easily just driving the pin out of a 12 inch I-beam it's set into. Don't know what it is but mean to see if it will harden before waste time forging anything. How does that sound.
February 2, 201610 yr If it does not harden, it is not worth your time and effort. That said, your "hardened and annealed" comment leads me to think you should take a while and read up on heat treat terminology and procedures. If you don't know what the terms mean, how will you know how to properly heat treat? Not knowing the alloy will make heat treating a very big hit or miss. Hammers are alot of work. I would hate to see you get in over your head and waste time/money. Always learn from your mistakes, but don't set yourself up for failure either.
February 2, 201610 yr Author Yea it should have been harden and temper. Have been reading the heat treating guide and use a professional machinest/blacksmith for help. You guys are Grammer hammers. My fault not reviewing before posting.
February 2, 201610 yr 39 minutes ago, Ernie42141 said: Yea it should have been harden and temper. Have been reading the heat treating guide and use a professional machinest/blacksmith for help. You guys are Grammer hammers. My fault not reviewing before posting. Not so much grammar hammers but it's easier to explain stuff and understand questions when we / you know what's really goin on. You can try brinin it to critical and quenching in oil see if it hardens up, if it does your golden if not don't waste your time and effort.
February 2, 201610 yr If you have a way to cut off a slice to try hardening, that's probably your best approach.
February 2, 201610 yr It occurs to me that a "pin" from a heavy truck scale sounds like something that's got to resist a lot of shear forces. It would make sense to me if the pin was hardened, if it was in a pivot, or if it was tempered for a calibrated "toughness" if it was supposed to shear as part of a fail-safe. What doesn't sound right is a heavy pin from that application that's soft enough to deform getting installed or removed. Stuff like a truck scale is generally designed by people who know what they're doing and engineer accordingly. If they needed the shear limit of a known mild steel, that's what they'd use. I'm struggling to think of a reason why an engineer would use annealed higher carbon steel when mild is cheaper.
February 2, 201610 yr We use hydraulic rods for rounding hammers I belive there 1045 you night be able to score them at a tractor repair shop or a hydraulic repair shop bucket pins I think are 4140 also you can use jack hammer bits for hardies
February 2, 201610 yr Author Yea I have a 4 inch ram about 8 feet long. Using part to pound a cone anvil. Got to soften it in a fire though. It's XXXX to cut. Watch your language.
February 4, 201610 yr I used truck axels for my first hammers, and I have heard that tractor hydraulic rods from a ram work very good, but are plated, so watch out for the fumes!
February 9, 201610 yr When looking at metal the easy way to test it is a spark test. after doing that. I try oil first as a quench, then if it dose not get hard enough. I use a salt bath like the gunther quench, and last of all water. When you make hammers 1045 is Ok at best. 4140 through 4340 are great choices. 3" of steel is a lot to hammer for a first try. I would start out with a 1 3/4" to 2" piece first. But if you just want to go through the steps there is nothing wrong with mild steel a lot better choice then clay.
February 9, 201610 yr 2 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said: I thought a slug was 32.2 pounds... The ones I put in my 12ga are only an ounce.
February 9, 201610 yr Yup y'all have the puny deer out on the east coast...I've run across a herd of elk crossing the road about 2 am where it looked like most could just suck in their gut and my pickup would slide right under them without ruffling a hair...
February 9, 201610 yr 9 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said: Yup y'all have the puny deer out on the east coast...I've run across a herd of elk crossing the road about 2 am where it looked like most could just suck in their gut and my pickup would slide right under them without ruffling a hair... Lol, yeah they're like underfed doggies over here, funny looking brown greyhounds... Well, none at all by me now that I'm a city boy, but out on Long Island there are plenty.
February 10, 201610 yr ummmm.........Thomas, check yer blood sugar level ......drive "under" an elk??
February 10, 201610 yr His pick up is a low rider El Camino and it's been customized with the low profile rims and had the top chopped.
February 10, 201610 yr Things are bigger in Texas, especially the hunting and fishing stories; why I once hooked a catfish so large....
February 10, 201610 yr Thomas, I got the physics joke on the slug comment. What's funny is that I only learned about it when I was trying to calculate the kinetic energy of a handgun bullet. I could tell I was off by an order of magnitude but I was nevertheless surprised to learn the unit I needed was named "slug".
February 10, 201610 yr Thanks; for some reason I tend to have to explain my jokes to my younger co-workers....and when you mention calculating the renaissance sforzas active in Milan...
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