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I Forge Iron

heat treating punches and chisels and dealing with idiots


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Nolano,
When you tempered it, did you just stick it in the quench and hold it there, or did you move it up and down a little? All of the info I find is that you should swirl it around but also move it up and down a little. Other wise your going to have a stress zone right about where the "tempering line" starts.

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Nolano,
in addition to what mecho said it is possible that eh steel used was quenched too agressively. What I mean is what did you quench in? If water it may have been an oil quench type steel. Heat treating is oftentimes an experiment in progress. You may have to find out by trial and error.
BTW what did the end that broke off look like? I mean teh grain structure?
It is also possible that there was a micro crak in teh piece. Sometimes 'found' steel does this. After all it was originally discarded for a reason.....

8)

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  • 3 years later...

Sandpile, you are right people do get hurt this way. My left eye received a 3 mm by 2mm piece of steel that flew of the hammer face edge. 10 years later it still remains deep in my eye socket as it was to far in to remove without further damaging the eye. Most of you know not to hit two hammer faces together with great force but i didnt at the time. My point is an accident is NO accident, just humans being ,, well human. Live n learn

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Most of you know not to hit two hammer faces together with great force but i didnt at the time.



There was a test done on this recently. It was on TV, I don't remember the name of the show, but they took two hammers and slammed them together at forces way greater then a human could develop and not one broke. They did this with hundreds of hammers ranging from ounces to several pounds each and the only failure was the handles breaking.

Just some nice to know info.

Paul Edited by Paul B
Son just told me the name of the show Mythbusters.
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I think the show i mythbusters and i would love for them to tell me
otherwize
, Hammers are not difficult to chip, even my father got one in the chest
and it pierced the skin.The reason i brought it up in the first place is that a chisel thats to hard will likelly react the same way as a hammer. I
did not see the show but im guessing the hammers were alingned
so the faces hit dead on so nothing happend to tha face. Now
take those same hammers and set one hammer on an angle and
hit the other one that remains flat, Now u have a very small contact
point that distorts the faces and chips come off.

eric

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It was Myth Busters where they did that test. The test was to see if a hammer could EXPLODE. They found that hitting them together will not cause an explosion of over hardened carbon steel. They did however make it clear that hammers do CHIP and can cause serious injury.

This reminds me of a project we did in highschool making chisels. We were told to forge the chisel then anneal, grind to shape, harden, temper, and then sharpen. My chisel made it way thru the bolt after about 3 or 4 swings. One other student who didn't pay as much attention just hardened his chisel and did not temper it.... He made it thru the bolt in 1 swing. However on a 2nd try the chisel broke. I dont know how hard the bolt was but...

The lesson to be learned here is yes you can make a chisel that is extremely hard and can cut thru something else that is hard, but dont sacrifice safety. Someone could have been hurt. Now I'm not saying that you couldn't make a chisel that was safe to use and could cut a hard nut or bolt... Just something to consider for anyone who tries this... Safety First!

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Well the outcome of any such chisel-bolt encounter may well depend upon scale... I believe that I might easily snap the head from a 1/4 inch bolt whereas I might need a torch if taking on a 3/4 inch bolt. If I had no torch I might just go the other way and use some refrigerant (used to be freon) to freeze the bolt so that my chisel would crack it right off. A blacksmith would think nothing of hot cutting a bolt of ANY grade! There are many ways to skin a cat! ANY tool is just junk metal in the hands of an ignorant user. Conversely, a skilled craftsman can make some pretty humble tools to sing an impressive chorus!

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If I recall correctly, that mythbusters show was discussed at lenght on another website. The reheat treated the hammer heads. Got them red and quenched in a little pan of oil, since they said it was the best way to make steel hard. :)

I think that most modern hammers are in the 1040 to 1050 range if a mass produced product. They are not hardened much. At the valve shop we had a big order from an outside customer to forge hammers. 1# to 8# sledges. All 1045 plain steel. They were forged in a press, with the last step punching the eye clean. They the hammers went on a conveyor and a spray of water hit the faces only. These will not have been very hard. I think that the customer was Stanley but not sure.

An older hammer, made well, hardened well will indeed chip. One should never hit a hard tool with a hard hammer.

I have done first aid on a number of folks that learned this the hard way. Also keep those tools dressed on the striking ehd. Same issue.

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