Cut stock in half the easy way

[yesteryearforge]

Stock cut in half the easy way ( give it to the apprentice and tell him to cut it in half )

Mike Tanner

[primtechsmith]

yeah...that works. As long as you aren't the apprentice!

Peyton

[ThomasPowers]

Then the method is to ask the "master" to show you the process...

[Ten Hammers]

I have a junk hammer that I use to strike anything but hot steel ( center punch to tooling ).

[Bentiron1946]

Cut it yes, but in half, close maybe, why? All of the stuff I make could care less and if I'm that short of stock I'm in real trouble. Hack saws, hot chisels, cold chisels, hardies or any other tool you can think of are all nice. Some very helpful tips here, thanks.

[arftist]

Thanks Thomas for the info on "mild steel". I had to check with my suppliers on this, and sure enough they did not know, nor could they determine the carbon content of A-36. That is a little scary if you think about it too much. In spite of this new to me information, here is how I often use a hardy cutter: Forging multiples of same piece, as many irons in the fire as needed, after last heat, cut part way through, quench, bust finished piece off, bar goes back in forge, repeat.

[blafen]

sort of off topic but i once had a piece of orange hot steel i was cutting fly off the anvil bounce off a wall bounce off that wall hit my anvil and then bounce into an open gas can my dad left in my shop luckily it had no gas in it but i stood there marvelling at how it bounced and bounced finally to go right into the inch and a half opening on the can.

[ThomasPowers]

I had a friend teaching his wife to forge once and the piece escaped the tongs, whizzed by his ear, bounced off the trunk of the tree behind him, whizzed back by him and dropped neatly into the slack tub.

He called off the lesson fpr that day.

[rokshasa]

for cuttign stock of any kind and even some large chunks i use a "soft" hammer i have 2 i got them with the anvil, they where made so that the hardy wouldn't break, they are heavy so they drive very well and you dont have to worry so much about damage, made with a miled steel chaft welded onto a metal pipe.

[Alwin]

I make my own hammers and chisels. The chisel ends are softer than the hammer face so I just don't worry about hitting them with whatever hammer I'm using. On the hardy if I am going to use the piece in the fire right away I'll cut most of the way through and then break it off with a pair of tongs as I head back to the forge. If I'm not going to use the cut off part right away then I'll use a shearing cut as my last one. Depending on where I want it to fall I'll either come down on the far side of the hardy to shear it or put it on the far side of the anvil and come down with the hammer just off the anvils side to shear it there. If you practice that you can drop the cut offs right next to the anvil. Cutting hot gives you more control over the breaking. I find that cutting steel cold is a little less predictable and is generally the time when I'll accidentally go too far or send steel flying if I'm not careful-so I'm careful about when and where I do that.