June 23, 200818 yr Did you just hold it in water at that spot or did you move it up and down in the water? If you just held it steady you may have a "water line break" issue. Else you may have an alloy that shouldn't be hardened in water "tool steel" is rather meaning less as there are hundreds if not thousands of tool steels out there, some harden in water, some in oil and some even harden in air!
June 24, 200818 yr Author Thomas, Thanks for the info on tip quenching,no I did not move it up and down. The "tool steel" I used was from a demolition air hammer's 4 foot chisel cut down. Do you think I should use water,oil for quenching? Thanks Paleo
June 24, 200818 yr I would use oil and it needs to be tempered afterwards as quenched will likely be wayy too hard..
June 24, 200818 yr Paleo, that still could be anything from 1050 to S7! With unknow steel you start with the gentlest quench and if that doesn't get hard enough you go harsher, Remember that you may have a decarb layer so when you check it with a file dig in a bit---I "sharpen" the tip a bit to not leave a notch but still get through any decarb. Even if it's the correct hardness you will probably want to draw a low temper on it to make it tougher. I'd try oil as a good general first guess (not the gentlest but the air hardening are usually high alloy top dollar metal and so not used a lot)
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