Heat Treating hammer

[Greengiant]

Got a nice hexagonal piece of steel that was tested and came back as LA C steel ( thanks to my son the engineer) . The detail analysis shows the largest concentration ( .0751) of Chromium.   I would like to forge some of it into a rounding hammer as well as a punch.  My plan would be to heat it to lemon yellow, forge it and then quench it in oil?  

Thanks

[ThomasPowers]

What do the specs for it recommend?  If they have the gear to identify it they should have the ASM manuals to cover working and heat treating it too.

Will it harden when heat treated? Posting the entire analysis would be a help---except for the tramp elements

[Greengiant]

Thanks for the speedy reply

i checked ASM and the term doesn't appear. Here is a copy of what I received.  I asked for two samples to be tested .  The second one is familiar, but I wanted to use the other piece as it is much larger. 

Many help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Karl

1 minute ago, Greengiant said:

Thanks for the speedy reply

i checked ASM and the term doesn't appear. Here is a copy of what I received.  I asked for two samples to be tested .  The second one is familiar, but I wanted to use the other piece as it is much larger. 

Many help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Karl

 

[ThomasPowers]

Which edition of the ASM did you check and are you going to post the analysis?

[Greengiant]

I attached a screen shot of the report you will notice two samples were tested. The first one ( Csteel) is large enough to easily forge into a rounding hammer.

i appreciate any help you can provide

Karl

[ThomasPowers]

What's the carbon content of the first steel?  I had to kneel before the monitor and take off my glasses to read that spread sheet. If you are asking people to help you it is nice if you do as much as possible to make it easy for them.

[Greengiant]

Sorry about the size of the screen shot that was the only way I could get all the data into the pic.  

 I'll have to go back and ask about the carbon content.

[ThomasPowers]

Unless it has enough to make it at least a medium carbon steel I would say it's not hammer material---unless you want a soft hammer for driving tools with.

Trying to suggest a heat treat process without the carbon content is like jumping off a cliff into a stream without know if it's 3' or 30' deep. Lemon yellow is quite likely very much too hot for hardening.

[timgunn1962]

My guess is that the analysis was done using an XRF gun, which will not (usually) detect Carbon.

XRF is very quick and easy to use, so gets used a lot for identifying alloys in the scrap industry. There the value of the scrap is largely dependent on the alloying elements and tramp elements present.

The analysis allows control of the inputs of the alloying and tramp elements to the remelt. The Carbon content is adjusted during the production process anyway, so there is little value in measuring the Carbon content of the input material and it is not cost-effective to add Carbon measurement capability to the instrument.

Analysis of the heavier alloying elements will usually be enough to narrow down the range of alloys into which a particular sample might fall. In many applications outside the scrap industry, this is enough to be useful.

 

[Greengiant]

Thanks for all the comments Thomas Powers and Timgunn1962  

The guy who did the analysis for my son  works for a company that makes portable analysis units for the scrap industry.   

Perhaps I am overthinking this.  Absent this very sophisticated analysis I would have forged the hammer shape, heated it to non magnetic and quenched it in oil.  

Thanks for sharing your expertise

[ThomasPowers]

Try a starting piece first---no forging just the mass.  It should let you figure out heat treat without wasting all the time on what might not work in the end.