hardening a hawk made of a ball peen

[bubbyh]

Hello fellows and lady friends. I am trying to heat treat a tomahawk i made from a old ballpeen hammer. I have annealed, i have tried everything but i cant get this thing to harden. I got to non-magnetic, quenched in canola oil at 140°. That didnt work, then tried water, still not hard, any suggestions?? A file will still bite and now i dont know what to do??? HELP!!!! This thing turned out beautiful but not worth a xxxxx if i cant get it hard????

[PaperPatched]

I can draw file the edge of all my axes and hatchets; some with a degree of difficulty (depending on the hardness of the file used). The one axe I cut down and reformed the eye of came out so hard that a good file would barely nick it.  I broke a corner off that one and had to re-do it and temper it softer.  Tomahawks are going to get thrown.  Sooner or later you'll catch your target with a corner at an angle and if too hard you'll break off a chunk. 

Alan

 

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard BubbyH glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you might be surprised how many Iforge members live within visiting distance.

Two points: First, as Alan says you do NOT want axes, hatchets and certainly NOT hawks "hard" or they'll break. A sharp draw file should bite smoothly without dragging.

Second, is that ball pein going to harden at all? Some of the new ones are pretty low carbon steel while some of the old ones will get hard enough to shatter like a coffee mug.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Bo T]

You can try increasing your temperature above non-magnetic. Take it to a uniform color a couple of shades brighter than non magnetic, then quench. If it hardens, temper immediately. If it doesn't harden, take it a couple of shades brighter yet and try again. Good luck and let us know how it turns out. Also, are you getting the file below the decarb?

[Dustin Quade]

I made a couple of axes from ball pien hammers about a month or so ago and got them to harden really well. I found that i had to heat them up well above non magnetic and i quenched into canola oil at outside temperature (about 25 degrees celsius) after that I tempered them in the oven for about an hour and a half at 400 degrees. They hold a pretty great edge. Hope you get that all sorted out. Also the one uniform mistake i made was that i kept the eyes the same as a normal hammer and was highly reccomended that i stretch it out to be more like an axe handle or a tomahawk. If you have not already done that i reccomend doing it now before you get to far and dont want to turn back to fix it.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Try sprinkling a bit of table salt on the steel to verify you have it at critical temp (just a bit above non magnetic but right at the melting point of salt).

[ThomasPowers]

A bull pin makes a great drift and can take a lot of hammering on the sides of the eye to get it stretched out larger.  I use my hawk drift only for the last bit as it's ductile and so wears faster than a bull pin.

[Dustin Quade]

20 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

A bull pin makes a great drift and can take a lot of hammering on the sides of the eye to get it stretched out larger.  I use my hawk drift only for the last bit as it's ductile and so wears faster than a bull pin.

Super glad you posted this because i could not remember the name of the tool for the life of me.

[ThomasPowers]

One of those items I pick up whenever I see them cheap at the flea market, (under US$5)  got them in a lot of different sizes over the years, even took one long and skinny one with a wrench on one end and forged the wrench end down to fit the hardy hole and bent a right angle in it so I can work on small rings with it.