I was looking to buy a 3/4 inch hardy hole cutting tool but am having a hard time finding one... do most people just make their own or people just hoarding them?

You can do either, make or buy , I've made my own out of sucker rod ,large broken chisels bought for almost nothing at pawn shops and yard sales or found scrap.

I have a little Hay Budden 84lb anvil that I believe has a 3/4 inch hardy.  I can make you one if the hardy is the same.  OR - I can make you a Brian Brazeal style hot cut that is tapered and sets (wedges) into the hardy hole of your anvil.  You can message me and we'll hammer out the details.

 

i use both kinds of hardys but am favoring the brian brazeal style lately for the hot cut.

 

It's one of those tools where even a new smith can make a usable one simply; but they cost to have someone else make one.  As 3/4" is not as common a size as 1" there are not as many old ones around.  However You can forge or grind the stem of a one inch one to fit.  (I have the other problem: 3 anvils with 1.5" hardy holes so I have made sleeves for them to use 1" and made 1.5" hardy tooling by tasking mushroomed top tools and forging their striking ends to fit as stems for the hardy hole.)

I do not like tools that wedge in the hardy hole myself. Much better if they fit right in my opinion; but blacksmiths' opinions are like blacksmiths' fingers we all have 6 to 10 of them...

I imagine i will start making this type of stuff myself eventually but i want to get started and i dont really have much scrap laying around yet, only a handful of railroad spikes.. I Need to go to the farm and hit our junkyard and scrap piles and some local salvage places. I think i will probably buy 1 to get started so i can hot cut some stuff then start making my own tools =D

Do you have access to a welder?  I picked up an ancient lincoln tombstone for US$40 and it's made making a lot of tooling simple.  I've seen hotcuts made from a section of bed rail welded to a piece of square tubing.  Old bed rail is generally a medium to high carbon steel so be sure to preheat and slow cool.

Nope, working on getting one now. we have multiple on our farm but it's a 5 hour drive from my house and that's one item i cant take from the shop .. trying to see if i can locate one closer

My favorite hardy was forged from the broken off end of a jack hammer bit---chisel end about 3" wide, forged the broken stem down to fit the hardy holes, normalized and ground the edge sharper.  Been using it for classes about 20 years now and run it across the grinder every now and then to deal with student accuracy issues.  It will outlive me.

When I started putting my shop back together a couple of years ago, the first tool I made was a hot-cut from a jackhammer bit I begged from the tool rental counter at the local big-box. It was crap, but it served me well until I got some torsion bar from my mechanic and forged a proper one. 

In other words, using what you have to get you where you want to go is a Good Thing.

(Also, I'm a fan of the Brazeal-style hot-cut. You don't want it to wedge too tight; just enough to hold steady while you're cutting.)

I suggest you PM Littleblacksmith. He made a 3/4" Brian Brazeal hot cot that he was going to send to someone for free. Not joking. He may have already sent it to someone, but it's worth a try.

1 hour ago, C-1ToolSteel said:

I suggest you PM Littleblacksmith. He made a 3/4" Brian Brazeal hot cot that he was going to send to someone for free. Not joking. He may have already sent it to someone, but it's worth a try.

Ill keep that in mind, i think Kevin is forging one for me right now though =]. but in case something happens ill give him a shout