New and looking for advice

[Iron Fangs]

ThomasPowers, the advice I always see you give people is to learn one alloy at a time until I know it inside and out, and I think this is advice I should follow, if my intent is to start by making tools and graduate to knives, swords, Shields, and traditional martial arts weapons, what alloy is recommended?

[ThomasPowers]

What tools?  That advice is for knifemaking where someone starting out needs to deal with a lot of factors that are not so much a problem when working with mild steels. (Forging start temps, forging stop temps, accidental contact quenching, heat treat temps, how it works under the hammer, stress concentrators, decarburization, etc and so on!)

For tools the alloy needs to support the use; however 5160 is a good alloy for a lot of different things.  (I still like the hotwork steels for slitting chisels and punches for blacksmithing; but they can be expensive and difficult---I managed to cottage cheese the end of an H13 chisel the first time I worked with it, luckily it was long enough to recover from the error and I'm still using it in the shop 30 years later.)

[Iron Fangs]

By tools I mean chisels, Hammers, hooks, axes, possibly a flat head screwdriver (just a tiny chisel right?)

I'll look into everything that goes into knifemaking before I make my first one, but I'd rather build my fundamentals before I get into that

[ThomasPowers]

Chisels: stone, steel, soft metals, wood?

Hammers: smithing or carpentry?

Hooks: generally mild save for special uses, then medium C and rarely HC

Axes: 1050 to 5160 and then go to steel bitted mild bodied?

Screwdriver: tough rather than brittle so NOT a small chisel!

[Iron Fangs]

For chisels: steel or wood

For hammers: Both!

[Iron Fangs]

I guess my question mote simplified would be:

"Between Mild, Low Carbon, and High Carbon Steels, what is an example of what I would make with each? And when is wrought or cast iron the best choice?"

This will be the best way for my Mind to organize the information

[JHCC]

Mild and low carbon are the same thing; I think you meant low/mild, medium, and high carbon.

Extremely broadly, use mild for anything that does not have to be (or should not be) heat treated (hooks, gates, trivets, tongs, etc), use medium for things that benefit from being tough but not hard (hammers, top and bottom tools, pry bars, etc), and use high carbon for things that should have some degree of hardness (knives, chisels, razors, etc). Wrought iron can be used for anything that you would use mild for. Cast iron cannot be worked in the forge and should be used as it comes from the foundry and machine shop as components of various machines (the table of my drill press springs to mind).

Once you get into fancier alloys, things get more complicated.

[ThomasPowers]

Off the top of my head, no resources here at work: Others, please feel free to add/correct this!

Gray Cast iron: can't be forged and is messy to machine. It is good in large amounts for machine parts that are easily cast, not too stressed and can make use of the mass and vibration damping properties.  So, basically not a blacksmithing material.

Wrought iron is *the* historical material for a blacksmith, 19th century and earlier back to the start of the iron age. It has been superseded by MUCH better steel alloys that are easier to work and cheaper too!  So it's main uses is for historical reproduction to a high level of authenticity (most folks won't pay the price to get the "right stuff" though), bragging rights, and also for it's "artistic" look when a piece is etched.  (Bessemer steel==mild steel was invented in 1850's and by the end of the 1930's Wrought Iron was getting very little use.)

Mild steel is Low Carbon steel. True mild is easier to forge and can be worked hotter than steels with more C in them.

Medium carbon steels excel where you need a material stronger than Mild and tougher than HC, it also had better wear properties than Mild Steel and can be heat treated to make use of the medium carbon content.  Medium Carbon steels are not as picky in the forging of them as HC steels and so cheaper to use. (Hammer heads, hardy tooling, tongs, etc)

High carbon steels are used when you have to have their properties---so generally for cutting tools not subject to a lot of stress, or when you need their wear resistance---allows with more carbide forming elements can help increase wear resistance.  HC steels are harder even when not hardened in their cold state.  Blacksmiths tend to use them a lot of places they are perhaps not the best alloys for; because they are so easy to find in the scrap stream. (Knives, Swords with a higher tempering temp or at the lower end of C range, etc)

High Alloy Steels: A, H, D, M, etc, series---a lot more expensive, a lot harder to work, most of them do not do well with blacksmithing types of working and heat treating; *but* they have some really neat properties!  High hardness when hot---the tempering temps for some of these alloys are in the *glowing* range!  Some of the really really nice smithing tools  like punches and slitting chisels may be made from H-13 or S-7 two alloys that will work with some blacksmithing methods.  Note you can forge some of the HA steels but they can be tricky---A series hardening between hammer blows or D series laughing at you when you hit it with a hammer; however to get the best from them you still need high tech heat treats that most of us are not able to provide. (electric furnace with computerized controls and inert atmosphere for instance.) If you can't get the best from these expensive alloys why use them!

Comments?

[Iron Fangs]

Thank you for the correction and the examples, JHCC can I test for these with tempering and harness test in conjunction with quenching?

 

Thomaspowers, thank you for that amazing expansion on how to use alloys, it was just what I was looking for

[ThomasPowers]

Scrapyard Rules: test everything!  I remember getting some metal from an old piece of farming equipment. Two stays, one on one side and the other on the other side: one was real wrought iron and the other was about 1084.  I figure a repair was done in the Great Depression and they used whatever they had to hand...

I even have run into one piece of strain hardened low alloy leaf spring---can't be quench hardened. (Of course 1 piece in 40 years....)

In general though: manufacturers will use the cheapest alloy that will do the job!  (So don't expect HC when a low C part will do!)

[Iron Fangs]

So when I test scrap, what doesn't harden is mild, what hardens and bends is medium, and what hardens and shatters is High... did I get the jist or did I misunderstand what ThomasPowers and Frosty were telling me?

[ThomasPowers]

Low bends easily; medium is much tougher and if quenched may be brittle but much tougher to get it to break; high is easy to break, may shatter---wear PPE!

I suggest folks build a set of known samples that they can compare other pieces to.

A good file is an excellent comparison piece for HC. (Close to 100 points C)

Car axle steel is a good comparison piece for Medium C (But needs to be forged down to a more common size to compare with.) (Around 50 points C.)

1018 or 1020---NOT A-36! Is good comparison piece for Mild. (18 to 20 points C)

Note 100 points = 1% C

You can also use the samples for comparisons for spark testing

[Iron Fangs]

When I begin scavenging (gotta get me an anvil and build my forge first, baby steps) I'll start doing just that and making sample bars, are 1" width and 3-4" length a good size for samples?

[ThomasPowers]

What thickness?   

And have you looked through the improvised anvil thread yet?  The London Pattern anvil has been around less than 300 years.  The "block of wrought iron/steel" anvil has been in constant use for 3000 years---what should an anvil look like? An 80# chunk of steel is US$16 at my local scrapyard, a hundred pounder will run you $20...  Getting started is a lot more important to getting good than if your anvil looks like a London Pattern anvil!

[Iron Fangs]

I have seen that thread, and it's asking me consider going to a car graveyard to saw off an axel head to use as an anvil (and something to simulate a horn to help with curves

[Daswulf]

There are such threads like The portable hole, for using hardy hole tools. Also a large log or stump can be used to hold home made stake tools if you needed a bickern or (horn). 

There are a lot of neat tricks and none of us know them all. The more you read on here tho the more you'll learn, even if you weren't looking for that specific information. 

[Iron Fangs]

This is a cool place lol

[Chad J.]

You seem to be asking all the right questions and getting some great information to boot.  One quick thing,  not sure if you've seen this tip, don't grip your hammer too tightly when you get to start swinging.  It's a common mistake and easy to do.  I had taken the winter off because it's Wisconsin and I didn't have a roof over my head.   When I got back my mechanics were all messed up because of that and it lead to aggravating some tendinitis I have in my elbow.  I finally managed to correct my form and fixed my grip by putting bees wax on my handle for a bit more friction.  I've also changed how my handles are shaped and I believe a few people have knobs on the end of their hammers.  Oh, and listen to your body.   If something hurts stop it!  

[JHCC]

14 hours ago, Daswulf said:

There are a lot of neat tricks and none of us know them all.

Amen, brother. Amen.

[Iron Fangs]

Yeah, I'm the type to overdo it and push through without breaks, which I'm going to have to stop doing when working with fire and hot metal, luckily I have someone living with me that isn't afraid to give me a kick in the rear and tell me when I'm bring an idiot lol

but when it comes to quenching, is knowing which quench works for what all trial and error or is there a standard way to know?

[JHCC]

If you have a smartphone, get the Heat Treat app, which gives both the chemical composition of different alloys as well as their recommended temperatures and quenchants. 

Also, there's an entire IFI section on heat treatment with LOTS of recommendations for quenchants.

[Iron Fangs]

Alright, so I thought of 2 questions, one is more of an in theory since I will need practice in several basic skills before even attempting it:

1) for an oil quench should I use Motor or Vegetable oil? (Likely canola)

2) if I have a small amount of HC and a surplus of mild, can the two be welded together to concerve material when making a single edged tool (let's use a kitchen knife as an example) and use the HC for the edge and the Mild for the back? (This is with the intention of the softer metal acting as a sort of shock absorb to help reduce strain on the more ridgid)

[JHCC]

1. Vegetable. Motor oil contains nasties you do NOT want to breathe. There are also oils formulated specifically for quenching.

2. Yes; look up "san mai" construction.

[ThomasPowers]

One way of categorizing medieval knives is by how the HC edge was welded to the LC body: (lap, butt, wedge, vee etc); so yes it is possible.  HOWEVER that much forge welding and getting it right between dissimilar materials makes it more of an advanced technique. 

There is no shortage of easily sourced steels suitable for forging blades from. *One* nice spring pack would provide enough steel for several years of knifemaking for a typical person starting out and automotive springs are not a rare item in the USA. The trick is to find the ones with the least mileage/abuse on them.  Check out places that do lifts and lowers for vehicles, they tend to junk perfectly good springs on a regular basis. (Here in NM we get both the low riders and the jacked up rock crawlers both sending springs into the scrap stream.)

[Iron Fangs]

Awesome, thank you for the tips, I'll look into San Mai for the future but start with the car springs for the easy to come by material