Best steels for tooling?

[CopesyQT]

(Not sure whether I should have made a new topic or not, or if this is even the right place for this but here we go!)

I recently made a post about some steels I had given to me, to mix results it seems like they’re not the best for what I wish to do! 

So, if any of you guys could help with some suggestions on what to use for:

1 - Hot Cut Hardie Tool

2 - A Hammer Eye punch

2 - A Hammer Eye Drift 

my steel sourcing isn’t great right now so if you could suggest a few or a “family” of usable ones and a good way to acquire them from scrap that would be amazing, also extra points for knowing what the English steel grade is! Also explanations as to why they’re good to use and why certain ones aren’t, if I’m not already asking too much.

Any help is appreciated!

 

[Frosty]

Automotive axles will do for all these though something a bit harder might work better for the punch. Automotive coil spring if a sufficient wire size. Drifts can be almost anything steel.

Take a look at Brian Brazeals Youtube videos about his type hot punches, they're very effective and relatively easy to make. All his videos are excellent instruction in the craft.

Frosty The Lucky.

[CopesyQT]

Yes I’ve seen a video on making drifts from mild steel and treating them as consumables. Suppose making sure that the tapers are gentle and you’re not moving a crazy thickness they could still last.

also when you say could work better do you mean last longer or would the steel not do the job well?

[JHCC]

Yes. Generally speaking, a harder punch will move through the hot metal with less distortion or abrasion of its tip and is less likely to deform inside the hole. This both makes it better for punching a particular hole and for lasting long enough to punch many holes.

If you think about it, we ask a lot of our tools. Steel changes its properties when exposed to heat and shock, and both of those are present in spades in the forge. The "best" tool steels (and "best" is very much relative: all have advantages, and none is perfect) are those that are much less affected by heat and shock, and thus the force applied to (or with) them is directed into shaping the workpiece rather than distorting the tool, however incrementally.

That's all a fancy way of saying that a mild steel punch can certainly do a job to which it is suited, but since it is likely to distort (under the influence of heat and shock), it is not suited to heavy work nor should it be expected to last.

[ThomasPowers]

Drifts have a different use case than punches; though many of us use combination tools.  Having a punch that does not upset the end when driving into hot metal and does not need continuous cooling is a joy.  So I like S7 and H13 for punches and chisels and am quite willing to use car axle for drifts to be used after punching.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Most of my tools are made out of sucker rod (4130) mostly because they last and I have about 500 lbs U.S. of it that followed me home some 25 years ago.

[ThomasPowers]

Note that sucker rod comes in several alloys depending on it's use case.

[Ranchmanben]

When I started out I used sucker rod for a hot cut, coil spring for an eye punch and a jackhammer bit for the drift. As I used them more I started to try out different steels. I still use sucker rod for all kinds of punches including a hot cut. For an eye punch I stick with s7 or h13. I tend to like S7 more than h13 though. Both of those steels can be purchased from that auction site relatively inexpensively with free shipping in the USA. For the drift I still use throw away jackhammer bits from Home depot. It’s handy to have more than one hammer eye drift so one can be cooling off while you’re using the other.