Crankshaft counterweight

[Norrlander]

I had reason to disassemble a small engine a while ago and salvaged these counterweights. Judging by the spark test they've got a decent amount of carbon, so my mind goes towards edged tools.

In particular, I'm wondering about an adze (I need one in any case)but not sure if I'm letting a superficial resemblance trick me into a fool's errand. 

Any ideas folks? Anyone bashed on one of these things before?

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

I'd say they are usually cast iron, not steel.

 

[JHCC]

Remember that cast iron actually has MORE carbon than steel, while wrought iron has LESS. 

If you need an adze and you want to stick with car parts as your starting stock, I'd recommend a chunk of axle.

[Norrlander]

Aha! That's why I joined this forum, thanks a lot

I didn't know that about cast iron... so, not likely to be much fun to forge then? 

I'm not obsessed with car parts, but I am about to start stripping a Volvo for anything useful, so thanks for the tip about axles. Any other treasures I should know about?

[ThomasPowers]

Car axles are generally around 1050, Coil and leaf springs 5160 + a few other alloys that generally get treated fairly similar. I've been using valve stems to make small hot work chisels and punches and tooling.  Sway bars often make good tooling.

I don't work the sheetmetal as the paints can be toxic to burn off.

Common cast iron doesn't forge, it just crumbles into red hot cottage cheese if worked at the colder end of forging temps and splashes if worked at the hotter end. 

[Frosty]

Hood and boot springs are a handy size, I salvaged an old style flat coil from a car years ago and it's made I don't know how many hook knives and other small blades. The occasional spring too.

Steering link rods, torshion bars, etc. are good steel. Lots of useful steel in a car.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Norrlander]

I don't know if anyone is still following this thread, but I have a thing to check ... 

I assume that track rod ends would also be cast iron then, judging by the shape of them?

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Steering components are forged steel, not cast iron. Basically the only cast iron in a car could be the engine block, engine head, some crankshafts, camshafts, flywheels, brake drums and rotors.

When I would strip a car before sending it to the wrecker I would pull the following (not all cars have these items) ; leaf springs, coil springs, torsion bars,front and rear sway bars, steering components-center link/tie rods/Pittman arm, VW bugs had small flat torsion spring packs in the front beam pre 68, hood springs, some cars like my 74 Duster had long torsion springs for the trunk lid, axles, clutch and brake pedals (if they were not sheet metal stampings), headliner bows used for older vinyl headliners, steering shaft, gearshift lever if the transmission wasn't to be sold, driveshafts for tubing, and sometimes the front spindles.

[Norrlander]

Wow, thanks! 

That exciting to hear. After the counterweight response, I was feeling very wary of any 'organic' shaped pieces. But from what you say, it seems there will be more useful bits in this car than I even thought at first.

I really need to study my identification methods though, because I still can't discern any difference between the sparks from the counterweight (now officially my 'standard cast iron' comparison) and the known pieces of spring steel !