I tried my hand at making a coal rake yesterday. It seemed like a good first project. Unfortunately I ran into a little problem. My stock kept breaking. The first couple of times I thought I had gotten the metal too hot. On my last attempt, I was very careful and still had a failure. Now I'm questioning the steel. It's was a piece of round stock I had laying around. Possibly from Lowes.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Kinda looks like cast pot metal stuff to me.

burnt? grain looks large; you didn't quench it, or forge too cold? No idea unless you specify all of your process.

Looks burnt to me. Did you spark test it? Could be high carbon. Learning the temps to work different mystery steel is a little bit of a learning curve. 

I did not spark test it I will do that the next time I get out to the shop. I did not try to work it if it wasn't glowing red, so I don't think I let it get too cold. There were a couple of occasions I think I left it in the heat too long, as the metal was sparkling as I pulled it out of the fire. I did not quench it at any time.

The grain does look large. Almost like a cast iron break. I'll see if I can get some up close images. 

Thanks for the help. 

Good Morning,

"Sparkling as I pulled it out" means you got it too hot and burnt it. Another day, another lesson.

Neil

I'm with Neil, sparkling is just TOO HOT. It shouldn't have broken where it did so I'm thinking you heated too much of it. Just heat what you're able to hammer at one time. Heating steel, even mild steel, above critical temperature without hammering it to refine the grain (break up the crystal boundaries) causes grain growth to the point it might just fall apart as it cools or gets bumped. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Within reason, mild steel is pretty forgiving. That looks like something other than mild to me.

Sparking usually means it was much too hot for forging. Best I can think of is to throw it away and start with some known quality steel. 

Try getting your steel from a shop that makes gates, fences, metal fabricators, welders. It's really cheap ( or free ).  If they paid good money or it then it should be plenty good enough for your work.

Don't use rebar, it's too unpredictable. 

 

Those "sparks" are the carbon burning out of the steel. When the carbon is gone, ... it's no longer steel. Since we don't know the specific alloy, we have no way of knowing what it IS, ... only what it's not. 

 

 

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