May 22, 201610 yr I reworked two horse shoe pritchels for a square hole ( nail header hole) and decided to try my hand at hardening/temper-draw. I cooled the very slow after forging to shape. I don't know what for steel Diamond brand pritchels are but quenched in used Auto trans oil filling a five gallon bucket. Heated them Just into non magnetic. I polished the taper end (about two inches worth )and heated the struck ends to orange. Pulled them from forge fire. No colors in ten minutes.Did it again. And again. And again. Nothing. I heated more of the punch (9 inches long) say four inches of it to orange heat. Nothing. Did it again. No temper oxide colors. Did it four times heating about four inches of a nine inch punch untill I see some bronze and green/ purple etc. I had to reheat the end two more times to get the bronze out to the end of the taper. That all seems quite excessive in terms of heating. I figured the end was 2, 000+ °F and seven/eight inches away for a 1/2" dia punch it was only 450/500° when I called it good. That dont sound right but color is color. If it be polished silver and is still silver after all that heat on the opposite end I guess it's right. That took a whole lotta time and heat!!! Not something I normally do.
May 22, 201610 yr Pritchels usualy respond better to one heat heat treating, as in heat to critical and quench (I use warm oil for factory pritchels, as I've fracked a few otherwise) about 3 inches and polish one side real quick, so as to catch the tuning colors. Quench the last 2 inches till the back dropes to black and quench the whole tool
May 22, 201610 yr Sometime you might consider ordering a decent hot-work tool steel for your pritchel, 5/8" round, maybe H13 or S1. They are alloyed so that after hardening, each is tempered to dark red incandescent heat, 1200F, WAY ABOVE the heat rainbow, the latter ending at 630F. Dress it to a rectangular section, not square.
May 23, 201610 yr Author I have thought to forge some from a quality steel, but I have more shoe pritchels than I need (rectangle). I converted two of them into square punch for nail headers.
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