I work at a forge which has a collection of old  farrier tools, , masons tools, and assorted old tools, as well as a bunch of old wrought iron bars removed from a fence that's about 75 or 100 years old,

I made a few fire strikers from some of the old farrier rasps. The teeth on these rasps are not all in nice precise alignment like a modern rasp so my guess is they were hand made.  I heat treated to non magnetic and quenched in water.  They do not generate sparks when struck with a sharp flint.  I have made dozens of similar strikers using 1095 and/or modern farrier rasps and never had a problem,

I ran a couple of tests. I made quarter inch notches on either side of a two inch wide rasp and then fully hardened it. I tried breaking it on the anvil with no success so I put it in a vice and tried to break it using a four pound hammer,

I could not break it, It was not at all brittle, just behaved like a well tempered spring.  Most of these will harden well, but rarely will any of them generate sparks.

Does anyone know what they might be made of ?

Thanks

PS I have used mystery metal occasionally and get consistent results. Almost always bad.

 

 

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If you suspect they are hand made rather than a mass manufactured item, then it could be that the maker reporposed some material or other, so it's likely anyones guess unless you can get them tested. If they work as you intended and you are able to reproduce the heat treatment in the future.....does it matter? Just call it "Bromberg Steel", and keep it's composition and heat treatment a secret and marketing spin! LOL

3 hours ago, Dick Bromberg said:

I work at a forge which has a collection of old  farrier tools, , masons tools, and assorted old tools, as well as a bunch of old wrought iron bars removed from a fence that's about 75 or 100 years old,

I made a few fire strikers from some of the old farrier rasps. The teeth on these rasps are not all in nice precise alignment like a modern rasp so my guess is they were hand made.  I heat treated to non magnetic and quenched in water.  They do not generate sparks when struck with a sharp flint.  I have made dozens of similar strikers using 1095 and/or modern farrier rasps and never had a problem,

I ran a couple of tests. I made quarter inch notches on either side of a two inch wide rasp and then fully hardened it. I tried breaking it on the anvil with no success so I put it in a vice and tried to break it using a four pound hammer,

I could not break it, It was not at all brittle, just behaved like a well tempered spring.  Most of these will harden well, but rarely will any of them generate sparks.

Does anyone know what they might be made of ?

Thanks

PS I have used mystery metal occasionally and get consistent results. Almost always bad.

 

 

.

 

How do you know you fully hardened it?

If I had to guess you did not fully harden it.

My  guess is that it din't harden because it couldn't; perhaps the rasp was case hardened so the teeth might be high C but the body would not be.

Farriers rasp are notorious for being case hardened.  It's always good policy to test every one of them.  Even Nicholson used case hardening and good steels in their rasps over the years.  You never know which one you have until it's tested.

13 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

My  guess is that it din't harden because it couldn't; perhaps the rasp was case hardened so the teeth might be high C but the body would not be.

 

10 hours ago, jmccustomknives said:

Farriers rasp are notorious for being case hardened.  It's always good policy to test every one of them.  

This is exactly what came in my mind reading the OP. +1 to the case hardening

Gergely

One of the joys of working with scrap metal is that there is NO guarantee that anything is what you think it is; even two identical pieces can have the manufacturer switch alloys between them.  And replacement parts---especially during the Great Depression; I have found a lot of farm equipment to have replacement parts forged from "whatever was handy".  So two identical braces on a single implement: one worked/sparked like 1080 and the other like 1020; one would make a great sword, the other a part for an ornamental gate and please get it right!