This was made by my grandpa. He is no longer alive to ask. I posted this on another site and some one thought it was a cold cut.  Now I'm curious. 

 

My suspicion is that it started life as a hot-cut, but got sharpened back so much that it now looks more like a cold cut.

I don't know if it's hard enough to use cold, but you'll probably be fine using it hot. Just prepare for a fair amount of distortion in the cut piece.

Years ago.. Hot cuts had a thicker edge and a more obtuse shape compared with todays tooling..  It looks like an early hot cut to me..  I have one like that..  Mine is much bigger.. 

 

The one you have is pretty much worn down to a nib compared to it's starting shape.. If I can find it and dig it out.. I 'll post pictures in the next few days.. 

This was made in the early 70's 

2 hours ago, Jasent said:

This was made in the early 70's 

It may have been made in the 70's but keep in mind a lot of the tools were just copies of early ones..       Most still are or I should say, there isn't a lot that has changed.. 

3 hours ago, jlpservicesinc said:

It may have been made in the 70's but keep in mind a lot of the tools were just copies of early ones..       Most still are or I should say, there isn't a lot that has changed.. 

Yeah I'm pretty sure it was a hot cut. Tried to cold cut a peace of 1/4" round and it marred the edge. It will stay a hot cut for the rest of its life. Dout I'll use it very often as it belonged to my late grandpa.  Keep sake if you will

From the first picture, it's obvious it saw a lot of work. Good job cleaning it up.

Thank you irondragon

For cold cutting, one can simply use a regular cold chisel, a hot cut benefits from either being mounted (hardy hole) of fitted with a handle to keep the users hand away from the hot area of the metal being cut. The shape prefered for hot or cold cut respectively may not be the convention the maker follows. I would suggest it was intended as a hot cut simply because it is handled,

1 hour ago, Smoggy said:

For cold cutting, one can simply use a regular cold chisel, a hot cut benefits from either being mounted (hardy hole) of fitted with a handle to keep the users hand away from the hot area of the metal being cut. The shape prefered for hot or cold cut respectively may not be the convention the maker follows. I would suggest it was intended as a hot cut simply because it is handled,

Smoggy, I have both handled hot and cold cutters.. I have them also from about 6 lbs down to about 1lbs..  I also have hand held hot and cold chisels.. 

You can really cut some serious material with handled cutters whether cold or hot if you have someone who knows how to run a sledge.. 

It really does depend on back ground as well as where you were taught to make tools.. 

 

I'm pretty sure it's not a cold cut.  Tried it on 1/4" cold rolled round.  Now I need to dress it again. 

It's shaped like a cold cut probably from so much sharpening over time. Cold cuts and cold chisels are dressed to 60 degrees, included angle, if intended for cutting mild steel, a greater angle if the material is harder than mild steel. Hafted cold cuts were common in the old shops and were often used with a striker to nick and break small and large lengths of iron and steel.

We don't often see anymore cold hardies; they were also fairly common in the day. They fit the hardie hole of the anvil and most had the 60 degree included angle.

1 hour ago, Frank Turley said:

We don't often see anymore cold hardies; they were also fairly common in the day. They fit the hardie hole of the anvil and most had the 60 degree included angle.

Frank I use one all the time..   

 

Here are the pictures as I remembered when I got home from footies.  The first picture is of a hot and a cold made by the same company.. Athens tool..  then a hot and a cold by another company and then a worn out hot cut which I ended up using for veining.. 

 

Then a pictures of the hardies I use daily.. Offset (for one sided cutting), hot and cold..  I made these back in 2001.. Are fully heat treated. The offset and the cold were tempered.. the hot was left as hardened..  All will still slip a file..  We are talking thousands of cuts..  

Thank you for sharing that jlp

22 minutes ago, Jasent said:

Thank you for sharing that jlp

Anytime.. 

Yes the cold hardie is handy. I use a nice one made for me by Tom Joyce.

Here are a couple of others 2 on the left are factory and the two Hot on the right are hot cuts I made in 1999.. 

I made a hot cut out of a surplus cross pein hammer by grinding the pein into an edge but I do not use it much. A hardy tool saves me the third arm and I get less heat loss into the anvil.