Could i make tools from jackhammer chisels ?

 

jildert/ dutchforge

Moved to here from a unrelated thread

Welcome to the forum Dutchforge, please take a little time to add a location to your profile as it often relevent to the answers you recieve, also take some time to browse the forum where you will likely find many answers to this question and all the others you are likely to ask will have already answered numerous times. You may also like to pop over and make a post on the introductions section, and tell us a little about yourself, interests, skills, etc helps those willing to help you give appropriate replies.

Yes jackhammers bits can be used to make tools, they are in fact an excellent choice for jackhammer tooling....! Also usefull for many other tools.

Can you make tools from them? I have no idea, What tools would you like to make, what skills do you have and what facilities do you have?

they are usually high carbon steel, and make really good punches/slit chisels. i had one i made a touchmark from, and it is doing great. just make sure to heat treat them properly. 

No they are not usually high carbon steel!  They are usually medium carbon steel, 1050 is a common alloy for them according to a fellow who used to post here and had sharpened over a million of them.  They make good tooling for many uses. My favorite hardy was forged from the broken off end of a chisel point---it's survived about 2 decades of students so far...The really wide ones make nice hatchet or cresting stakes for armour making. They are not as good for tooling that gets buried in red hot steel like punches and slitters, they do make good drifts though.

Now *many* junkyard steel lists list jackhammer bits as S grade steels I believe because the "Machinerys Handbook" says that S grade steels would make good jackhammer bits. That is true just like Titanium would make great car bodies---you know anyone with a Titanium car?  Price is the killer, 1050 makes decent bits a heck of a lot cheaper than a high alloy steel and so that's what gets used.

Jackhammer bits also make good trading stock for blacksmithing conferences.

I forged an old jackhammer bit to make a hot cutoff that wedge fits into the hardy hole on my PW anvil. Works great, heavy duty, doubt I'll ever need to make another!  

I do NOT advocate wedge fits in hardy holes; snug is OK; but that is one of the weakest places on and anvil and driving a wedge in it is contraindicated!

That's the mother lode of jackhammer bits!  Definitely great trading stock, as Thomas pointed out, if you have access to lots of them.  I have a square chisel one that I used to punch a square hole and it did not fare too well.  It deformed pretty easily despite the fact I was cooling it in water.  I assumed it had already been heat treated for its intended use.  It was an experiment...  Point being, my little bit of experience backs Thomas's words of wisdom that they are ideal for punching into hot steel.  Still a ton of uses though and you are lucky to have that stock just waiting to be used.

Lou

Jack hammer chisels are a good quality high impact medium carbon steel and make excellent impact tools. With the right heat treat they also make good prying tools. Hot punches not so much but they will work.

I'm no fan of bottom tools that wedge in the hardy hole.

Frosty The Lucky.

Lots of opinions on wedge fits. I prefer it....just hate a hardy tool that bounces around. I have never had a problem removing the tool from the hardy hole and long ago let go of my fear of breaking the anvil. In the end, whichever opinion you hold, I have found the jackhammer bits to make great tools.

As I work with college students on a semi regular basis I have found that they can't be expected to not hammer the wrong hardy in an anvil even when it's colour coded on the anvil and hardy which go together---It's a well respected engineering and science school---(I fear the future!). Anyway I ended up not bringing hardies that would wedge in tightly to those classes.

Hi Jildert,

Welcome to IFI, always good to see Europeans here.

IRRC around here jackhammer bits are supposed to be made of 36CrNiMo16 but often they are plain C45. That means those are good for striking tools, like hammers, axes, tomahawks and stuff. 

But with all honesty it isn't worth the pain you'll go through with all those chisels. I can help you though, send them all to me, I even pay for the shipping, that way you'll have more space and can buy nice n good steel while I sacrifice myself to the recycling of this bad-bad stock.

Bests:

Gergely

I agreed with them. They are good stock to keep. I have pressed one and made a hammer out of. It moved well hot. It punched well. And hardened well. I think axes would be good if your using power tools too. By hand it would be hard seeing of how long they are. But could be done.