Hi there, wonderful community of metal-bashers!

I have a problem and hope you can help: sometimes the tips of my tapers start to split, rather like split ends of hair. It's happened with both mild and tool steel.

Can anyone shed light on what I might be doing wrong?

For me this is typical due to forging the tip at too low of a temperature. The tip cools quickly as it thins, but it also heats quickly. Don’t forge it below a red heat.

Pictures of the issue can be helpful… we always love pictures.

Keep it fun,

David

Sure, two solutions come to mind. First is heat management. Once it gets thin iron/steel work hardens quickly but also overheats quickly. I work thin tapers at a lower temperature but only work it briefly.

Another I picked up from Bryan Brazeal is to start tapers at the end with a short blunt taper then work back to the desired length. This prevents the puckering cold shut, AKA fish mouth on the ends when starting a taper back from the edge. As the fishmouth is drawn closed into a finished taper it's actually a bundle of small pieces that require welding temperatures to keep from splintering.

Bryan's method, something he learned in Europe IIRC, works well in two major ways. First you're NEVER fishmouthing the end, there just aren't the shearing forces present that cause the cold shut called a fishmouth, there other terms that are expressions of the frustration it causes but are violations of the good language rule.

The other and I find most useful benefit of using the point first method is never having to estimate how much steel to allow for a taper, scale loss, burning, etc. The point is made, stop when it's the needed length. ZERO need to estimate anything. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Thanks for those excellent (and entertaining) answers!

Yes, I've been trying to learn the 'fishmouth prevention method' for a while,  with varying degrees of success. I suspect I'm experiencing a combination of these issues. I'll keep on learning as always !

Back to the anvil (and we won't talk about the three lovely things I destoyed recently due to forgetting about normalising...)