May 26, 20206 yr Didn't get to go to the scrapyard Saturday so the only thing that followed me home was 3 pounds of loose leaf tea. I did get to commission some custom lampwork glass from my Daughter's SO though. Going to be part of a Veterinarian themed Christmas present.
May 29, 20206 yr Stopped by the scrap yard on the way home from some errands today. I wasn't looking for anything specific but there was a chunk of steel I'd pulled out of a bin to look at several months ago thinking it would make a great upsetting block but knew I couldn't afford it at the time. I had a little cash in my "stash" envelope, so decided to bring it home. It's 9" in diameter and 4 3/8" tall. Right at 80 pounds. I figure it ought to do a pretty good job for upsetting things.............................and if she happens tosee it, it'll definitely upset my little wife! s
May 29, 20206 yr Learned a valuable lesson. Even though it is 45 minutes each way, I will happily make the trip to buy my steel now. Been getting four foot chunks of mystery metal from Big Box, today I got 100 feet for 100.00. 20 feet of one inch round,, 20 feet of 3/4, 20 feet of 3/8 by 1 inch, and 40 feet of 1/4 by one. I think I should be okay for a couple days. Still trying to figure out what possessed me to buy the 1 inch round. I also have my first grinder. Not gonna set any land speed records, but it will definitely be a step up from hand forging.
May 29, 20206 yr Went on a hike and found a railroad spike. I'm planning on forging a knife with it to go along with a great memory.
May 29, 20206 yr Might review the thread on things to make from a RR spike that are not knives as RR spikes are a bad alloy for knives!
May 29, 20206 yr 2 hours ago, Ben Hoover said: Still trying to figure out what possessed me to buy the 1 inch round. Got a little carried away over good prices Ben? Sorry brother, doesn't make you special Atall Atall. Frosty The Lucky.
May 30, 20206 yr 8 hours ago, Chris C said: It's 9" in diameter and 4 3/8" tall. Right at 80 pounds. I figure it ought to do a pretty good job for upsetting things.............................and if she happens tosee it, it'll definitely upset my little wife! Did they have any more? This is what followed me home. The slave cylinder for my clutch went out in my truck and the mechanic who replaced It for me had a stack of stuff out behind his shop. He told me I could just take anything I wanted, but I gave him $10. Way over scrap price, but I will likely want to go back later for more. Next time I will bring gloves. Steel laying out in the sun is bloody hot. I am still “tooling up” and will likely use most of this for drifts, punches, chisels, and other such. The leaf spring looks to be from a small utility trailer or some other small thing. That I am not sure what I will have use for. My FIL owned a place that made trailers. I already had plenty of them. The other stuff is mainly tie rod ends and things similar to tie rods.
May 30, 20206 yr 6 minutes ago, DHarris said: Did they have any more? Way more than my old back could handle. They've had this wire bin with a bunch of them in it ever since I started going there. They range is all sizes. I really wanted larger, but when I took this one out of the bin it was the heaviest I could pick up. And it was all I could do to put it on the guy's scales and get it in the back of my truck. (I hain't a spring chicken any more, Don.)
May 30, 20206 yr Sorry, but you must have sent someone else the PM. But I just sent you one. By the way, NORTH (SE 55th) is on the top of my picture.
May 30, 20206 yr Oh, by the way, Don, I don't know if you caught it or not, but the reason I wanted this upsetting block is I want to make a hammer head out of part of that nice piece of axle you gifted me a year or so ago. So a hammer head is definitely on my list of future (near) projects. So thanks again for the gift.
May 30, 20206 yr I am still not certain it is an axle. It could be just mild steel. One of the pieces I picked up from my mechanic yesterday would probably be better. It is definitely an axle.
May 30, 20206 yr Oh. Well, what if I cut a piece off of the shaft, harden it and try and break it in the vise. If it hardens up enough to snap before tempering, would that lend credence to it being a drive shaft? Oh, and did you make it to LA's today?
May 30, 20206 yr Cut a scrap for testing, but do a file test before a break test. Less risk of shrapnel, you know.
May 31, 20206 yr The night Don gave it to me, we put it on an abrasive saw and I've honestly never seen a piece of steel take so long to cut through. Actually overheated and shut down the saw. Luckily it reset and ran again. That's one hard piece of steel. My plan is to put it in the forge and get it white hot............then stick it in my vermiculite bucket and let it cool down over night. Then I'll try and cut a "coin" off the end of it to test.
May 31, 20206 yr No. Slept till almost noon. Will try next week. I really don’t know what kind of steel that piece I gave you is. That slice we took with Korney’s saw wasn’t the first. I had done one at a friends shop a few months prior to that. It took just as long to cut using his saw, and just as with Korney’s, almost took out the saw. I tried hardening that first slice using oil. It didn’t. To harden it I had to use water. Forging it was not easy and it cracked, but I attributed that to me not being used to forging anything other than mild steel or something like a tie rod. I was hitting it too cold. I don’t remember how we hardened the slice we took at Korney’s. I believe it was just water in a slack tub. That slice was a bit too thick and not long enough to break the way we were trying to break it. All we really were able to do was just knock a chip off of it. That slice is the one which caused me to wonder if it were possible to identify steel by density. There is a post about it somewhere. I still intend to see if I can find an engineering student at OU who is willing to test it in one of their labs.
May 31, 20206 yr Well, I heated about 8" of the end to non-magnetic and just now put it in the vermiculite. Will leave it until tomorrow when I plan on trying to cut a piece off the end for testing. I've got a guy who is extremely knowledgeable about steel in relationship to forging, knives, etc. Will see if he can help.
June 1, 20206 yr On 5/31/2020 at 1:31 PM, Chris C said: Well, I heated about 8" of the end to non-magnetic and just now put it in the vermiculite. Will leave it until tomorrow when I plan on trying to cut a piece off the end for testing. I've got a guy who is extremely knowledgeable about steel in relationship to forging, knives, etc. Will see if he can help. So today I cut an 1/8" thick "coin" and 1/2" puck off the end of the 2" bar and took it to my friend's forge. He heat treated the 1/8" piece and broke it. Had a really nice and even fine grain. Then he took the 1/2" puck and made a knife for me. Forged it to shape and heat treated it. One thing he noted while working with it was it didn't acquire any scale..............at all.................as he brought it from the forge. Said it was really clean and nice to work with. He wasn't 100% sure it was 4140, but it acted a whole lot like it or something pretty darned similar. So making hammer heads out of it will be just fine.
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