Thread: Did a little bit on the forge today

"There is a lot of info on this site, he has a page on side blast forges here Scans - Side Blast Forge"

Thanks for that .

"Never seen shavings use to anneal steel before, I'm a bit concerned about the safety issue!"

Yes, I understand what you mean there.
I have been doing it that way for the last ten years. I once did it over night and had a 44 gal drum over the top as well. came in the next day to find just a pile of ash and a puddle of plastic. I have plenty of sawdust for when I need it . It has to be airtight ,of course. what I will be doing it in from now on is putting it in a steel tool box , with a lid. just thought of that this morning.


"One of the secrets to good anealing is to put large volume of red hot metal in the medium at the same time. Eg to anneal a 1 1/2 to 2lb hammer head or a single file use a large piece of say trailer axle 150 mm long, then leave them all there for 12to 24 hrs."

A good tip , thanks, will give it a try next time.


"The best way to tell how soft the metal has become is to use a file! There is very little difference in fileability of a well annealed high carbon steel file and ordinary mild steel. So if you don't reharden and temper you file after you have made it into the shape you want, its ability to hold and edge wont be any better than mild steel!"


I have been testing these files I annealed [ in a basic sort of way] first there was this attempt
from my first post,above

At about the 3.5 hour point I took one out and put a bit of water on it , it sizzled away , I left in on the wooden bench for five minutes , then dipped it in some water, I did a test and hammered it on the face of the anvil, the metal deformed, which is a good sign , the non annealed files crack like glass .
When I held the end of the test file half an inch over the edge of the anvil and gave it a whack ,the half inch snapped off.

form there I left the remaining 4 files in the container overnight, next day I held the edge over the anvil and it bent over , and then hammered back straight without snapping.

So it's softer but still feels much tougher than mild steel to file. one thing I need to be able to do with these floats is sharpen them, the other thing is the cutting face has to be dead flat and straight, my worry with re hardening and tempering is any distortion.

If I were to re harden and temper, what colours do you think Graeme, a dark cherry red for the hardening, only just visible, and then temper to a dark straw to brown or take it to blue?

Rob





Graeme[/QUOTE]

Oh , in the pictures the file on the leftin the pic where there is two, is the one that was bent and straightened .

Here are some more pictures of what I have been doing. The Old float is what I'm trying to do.

Rob

Wow you are putting some work into those! How exactly do they work, are they working like a keyway broach?
To harden high carbon steel you need to quench above 750c heading towards 800c which is a medium to a good cherry red! As for tempering, it is a compromise between toughness and holding an edge, blue is basicaly back to soft!
Have a look at a good tempering chart heres one I have found quickly http://www.anvilfire.com/article.php...s_hardness.htm Colours aren't good on a monitor, its the temperature's that are important! See Heat Treating Toolsteel - Tips - Techniques & Useful Information and here
Steels Useful for Tools - Tips - Techniques & Useful Information
Graeme

A Keyway Broach I don't know, I know what a Keyway is, I thought they were cut with a rotary tool /milling wheel. does a broach get used in the sort of shaper that engineers use. a horizontal in and out motion ?

I don't think I will be taking my chances hardening these tools. it would have to be done if they needed to be sharpened every time I went to use it , once every 15/20 minutes of use. I will see how they work first.

I did a thread on "unpowered tools " there are links posted there which show their use on woodworking planes, wooden ones with the blade held in with a wedge. This tool squares up the hole. I could be buying them ,worth a try doing it the old way first.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f152/p...-float-164415/


Thanks for the links ,I will have a browse through them tonight.

I did some more files , the larger size ones, put them in a tool box this time with the outside of the box wrapped in a wet towel.It stopped smoking after 5 minutes. wife and kids come home and ask me "what have you been cooking ? smells sweet . "

The forge has a crack in it that has to be fixed, I did it about one 1.5 years ago with a big fire and four house bricks holding up a high long fire. these old things have to be heated evenly by the looks of things. I heard it go bang,and now it's starting to spread. I have some cast craft rods for the arc welder. I have in the past welded cast with the mig as well, Thought I would use both if the cast craft runs out. what do you think ?

Rob

Great links thanks Graeme, I don't see any mention of using file's in there for tools, unless I missed it. the reason must be that they are not ideal ?

A few more pictures of my tinkering.

I have been wanting to try and straighten a coil spring out, this was my first time ,all was going fine ,then a lapse of concentration and I had burnt through and now had two lengths. It was going to be used in shorter lengths any way but that should not happen

The crack in my forge is getting worse, ground it out and welded it with the Arc welder, I did not pre heat it though ,I was being slack and thought if it does not hold I will re do it. I got the forge going again and used the spring material to make a hold down, the crack opened up again straight away. I actually thought I herd it crack 3/4 of the way through welding it up.
The hold down looks ok so far but is not working to well yet ,the Pritchel hole has a sharp edge on the inside and it is diging in when I hammer down the hold. I did not harden the hold down just normalized it. I did a drift punch as well ,hardened and tempered that.

When I took of the blower I emptied out the oil which had water it it,the filling hole did not have a sealed cap over it for years. after it had a clean up and new oil I was searching for a suitable cap. a few years back I had been with some friends who were shooting on a country property ,I took a few of the empty shell casings home. by cutting of 2/3rds and using the end I had a cool cap for the oil. it just needed a little stretching and reaming to give a tight fit. that was the thing that gave me the most pleasure at the end of a day of going one step forward and two back.

Rob

Hi,
I have missed this thread somehow???
Nice work on the holdfast and float!

As for annealing, i have used lime before, but i also have heard that vermiculite makes a great medium. The other thing to note is the steel to be annealed should be "soaked" at the given annealing temp in the fire, to ensure good heat consistency and for larger pieces to be heated all the way through.

I'm sure the question of tempering came up somewhere too, using a heated bar of steel to slowly and evenly heat something like the float is the best way i have found, or heat oil (check flashpoint first!) to the right temp and temper the job in that. Again the piece should be soaked for a while at the tempering temp before quenching.

My last 2 forges have been 1200mm square, brick work filled with sand and a layer of clay (crushed ants nest is great) as the lining. Tweer/twyre/tue iron is a brake drum with a 10mm plate welded in the bottom that is slotted for the air. Ash dump is a pipe running down at 45 deg to the bottom of the brickwork. For air i have only ever used a 4' double action bellows (home made).
Still have to put some pics in the pic thread.....

Great thread, I love the work with your float, hows it holding up? seen any use yet?

I use vermiculite to anneal at under $30 for 100 liters it is excellent value. Probably not as good a as ash or saw dust though.

Looks like all the heat treating stuff has been covered, but a suggestion if you want to do more, Get yourself some Rockwell files



I think mine cost about $40 but I use them all the time, it takes a lot of frustration and guesswork out.

Hi Corin ,

Rockwell files , never heard of them , sounds interesting and I will look into it thanks.

The float has had some work and works well enough , I have only used it on an old wood plane that had shrunk a little and was gripping the blade in to tight. It did that little bit of a trim up well. It's the only tool that could do it really . I have another float I made years back which I hardened and tempered, it stayed straight so I may give that a go on the new one

I have a few more to do and I was thinking of trying to just grind the file cold and see how that goes.

Rob