New to Smithing. Scored this cheap. Any winners here?

[Manno]

Dropped by my local upcycle yard and found a huge trove of this stuff. Picked out the best looking of the bunch (And all the files) and got a deal on them. Anything here particularly interesting to you guys? Brand new to the craft and don't know squat. 

[ThomasPowers]

Looks good to me; but if you are totally new to the craft you may want to start out with plain mild steel until you get your heat control and hammering up to snuff before you start working with the harder to hammer and narrower forging range higher C stuff.  Foreground left looks like a good starter hardy.

[Manno]

Thanks again Thomas! You are everywhere.

[ThomasPowers]

Omnipresent but NOT omnipotent!

[Stash]

The files should work for (wait for it......) filing. If not cold filing, then hot filing, or if totally shot, use the hi carbon in projects.(See TP's comment above). The rifflers (bent files/rasps are good in the woodworking toolbox for sculpting. Chisels are great for their intended purpose, and also can be adapted by grinding or forging into more chisels, punches, drifts, fullers, etc.The flatbar would end up as intended in my kit, unless I already had a bunch, then...... Not a bad haul. I tend to have a few buckets of imilar material waiting at the ready.

Steve

[Frosty]

Good haul Phats, lots of medium and high carbon steel to work with. As Thomas says, you''ll learn faster if you stick to store bought mild to build your bassic hand skills. Consistency makes a big difference. Till then though I'd pick a couple of the chisels and dress them to use at the anvil. Grind ANY mushrooming from the struck ends!! The overhanging rolls of steel will eventually chip when struck. The SNAP sound isn't really the steel breaking, that's more of a ping, the SNAP sound is the chip breaking the sound barrier for a couple feet. The chips make NASTY jaggedy bullets that are painfully hard to dig out of your hide and probably why so many blacksmiths are portrayed as one eyed. 

Save the rest, they're good stock for projects needing to be hardened or flexible strength. The speed bar is a darn good thing for the tool box but they're on my short buy list, they're excellent medium carbon steel same for crow bars, I pick them up. . . . well used to, I have plenty in the stock buckets corner. If they're cheap enough though. . .  

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Those old chisels generally make good drifts and punches once you get good at hammering and start to need such tools,  Generally you can just normalize them and not need to worry about heat treating unknown alloys.   Note, when grinding off the mushrooming watch the sparks and if you get any that throw off the "July 4th finale" type; save them away for things needing high carbon... (To get an idea of what you are looking for; touch the end of a file against the grinder and observe those sparks.)

[Manno]

Thanks a lot y'all. Invaluable advice!

[SLAG]

Mr. P.,

Those files are for working wood. They may be pattern makers files or rasps, or die sinker rifflers, 

If they are in reasonably good shape they can worth a lot of money. It depends on the maker. (e.g. Grobet Suisse, Pfeil, etc.).

The oriental knock offs are not worth bothering with. Yours look like old stock. which will be European.

If they are a little worn they can be sharpened using an acid treatment. Check on the site for threads discussing that subject.

Grinding mushroomed struck tools is important. A spalled piece of steel can destroy an eye,

If the mushroom pieces are large, simple grinding them off is not efficient and takes a long time. 

So I use a rotary tool, with the thinnest cut off wheel to cut off the piece and, then, grind the tool end. Grinding all the pieces off takes a long time.

I use a Dremel rotary tool for doing the job.

Use the thinnest cut off wheel. Any  thicker wheel will take almost forever to cut through.

SLAG.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Good haul for sure, they are all winners. Like others have said, I would use the majority of them for their intended purpose. Never have enough sharpening stones, chisels and files. Chisels can be modified and the struck ends need to be kept dressed for safety sake.

[Manno]

Thanks so much SLAG, that was incredibly helpful.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Mod30
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[ThomasPowers]

One thing people often don't think of is that a good large cold chisel and a 3# hammer can be very handy at scrapyards for disassembling stuff where the bolts have rusted solid. A lot faster Wham, Wham, Ting, than trying to get it to unscrew.  It's good to ask the proprietor  if you can do so first.  I also have a 24" hacksaw made from a bowsaw frame and a section of bandsaw blade that is handy at scrapyards and bandsaw blades are a lot less prone to breaking than cheap hacksaw blades are!