All from scratch

[silentC]

Here's a Scratch Awl that I made last week.

[arose62]

I'm interested in knowing how you did the "pointy bit".

In a previous investigation, I learned all about how centreless grinding works, but personally was just thinking about putting the metal rod in a drill, and presenting it at an angle to a grinder.

Cheers,
Andrew

[silentC]

Well, not really knowing any better, all I did was took a piece of 1/4" rod, adjusted the rest on my bench grinder hard up to the wheel (not rubbing), held the rod on an angle to the wheel and twirled it between my fingers.

I did this until I had the rough shape I wanted and then I cut it to length and put it in the chuck of my drill. Then with the drill clamped in a vice and running on the lowest speed, I used a bastard file to remove the dings, then a succession of emery paper and various grades of wet 'n' dry to get it near to the finished product.

Then I heated the rod until it was cherry red and dropped it in a container of linseed oil. Then I put it back in the drill and polished it with wet 'n' dry.

Not sure that the hardening process was sufficient but it's good enough to keep a point on it, considering how it is used.

[Cliff Rogers]

G'day.

A pack of 10 4" concrete nail cost about $5 at Bunnies.

They are good for home made awls & miniture turning tools.
They make very good miniture ring cutting tools.

[silentC]

Ahh, but they're not tapered, are they? I wanted a tapered spike. I made one with a straight spike and it looked as if I'd stuck a 4" nail in there, so I had another go and this is what I ended up with.

When you say ring, are we talking the kind my wife has too many of?

[Zed]

When I was an apprentiod We had to make a centre punch, I'll try to describe the process for you.

Get some steel rod of correct diameter. (Im not sure what we used they just gave us some 6mm rod).

decide which end is to be the pointy end.

file both ends to 90deg of the long cylindrical bit.

on the pointy end scribe a line through the middle of the diameter on the end of the rod.

mark the end of the taper on the cylinder

get a 2nd cut metal file and file a flat surface down to the centre line back back to the end of the taper mark. once this is done do the other side so that you essentially have a wedge. (make sure they are truley flat...)

you now have 2 facets.

do the same again at 90 deg of both facets so you have a tapered diamond.

repeat on the corners again and again until you get a true tapered cylinder (it doesnt take too long...)

buff with wet and dry.

on the very end of the pointy end use a grinder to make it REALLY SHARP.

finish the blunt end to size & shape desired.

grab the bastard in a pair of old pliers.

heat the blunt end of the punch (or scribe or whatever) with a blowtorch. you will note that as the heat moves along the tool it will discolour to a dark blue then eventually back to a light blue then back to normal steel colour before it goes red hot (this will progress up the steel as it heats) . Anyway as the end of the pointy bit starts to go light blue quench it in water. Viola!!!! instant hardened punch or scribe or whatever. if you want to stop it rusting. heat it up again until its about 200 Deg celcius (rule of thumb) then quench it in old motor oil. this will not damage the hardening.

lots of dicking around but good for an apprentice to learn basics. this is how the old timers did it I am lead to understand....

good luck

[silentC]

Zed,

We always used to dip 'em in oil to harden and heat up again to temper but I gather that is dependent on the type of steel. I found this page on the web: http://www.hocktools.com/diyht.htm which I referenced first but as I said, what I did was good enough for my purposes, seeing as you wouldn't normally hit something with an awl.

Be good to be able to make more rugged tools though and I'm going to have a go at making a charcoal foundry next year.

[Cliff Rogers]

The December 2003 issue of Australian Woodworker has a 3 page article on Hardening & Tempering Tools.
I found it interesting reading.
It has a chart of recommended temp/colours for various tools & some photo's of what it looks like.

[q9]

Linseed oil is definately not the oil to use. Very high fire risk. Bad.

Basic process of tempering:

Heat till glowing red.
Dip in water/oil (motor NOT linseed!) only until glow gone.
Rub with emery paper till shiny.
Watch as the colours change.
Yellowish bronzy tinge I believe is HARD (but brittle), blueish tinge is more springy. (only works with steel of sufficiently high carbon content).
When you see the colour you want on the tip, quench until cool.

Steel tempered!

[glenn k]

From my old tech school days I don't believe you can harden mild steel like this. It has to be case hardened. Thats why you use a concrete nail or an round file spring steel etc. But this is all from 1969 so I may have forgotten.

[q9]

Find a farrier and get the bits they cut off horses hooves. Wrap that around the steel and heat (must be hot for several hours). The steel absorbs nitrogen(?) and thus forms a hard outer shell, therefore "case" hardened.

Method I described in post above is for high carbon steel only.

[silentC]

q9,

I wish I could find the article where I read that the guy prefers to use raw Linseed Oil for hardening steel. If I do, I'll let you know.

Funny how many different ways of doing it people put forward. Use Linseed oil, don't use linseed oil, use motor oil, use peanut oil, let it cool in the oil, don't let it cool in the oil.

Anyway, I've got a book on backorder all about it, so I'll wait till I get that before I try making a wood chisel or anything.

I'm sure that the tip of my awl wont go blunt too quickly....


;)

[arose62]

Sheesh I'm slow today!!!

Only just got the punning in your post topic "All from scratch".

Ho-ho-hee-hee-hee.

BTW meant to say in my first post that the awl looks very impressive!

Cheers,
Andrew

[silentC]

Andrew,

Sorry about the pun, I couldn't resist it.

Thank you for your feedback. All I wanted was a bit of encouragement, and all I got was a lecture on hardening steel ;)

Just joking guys, I appreciate the input and I do want to be able to do it properly. So much to learn, so little time....

Cheers,
Darren

[Cliff Rogers]

Originally posted by silentC
Thank you for your feedback. All I wanted was a bit of encouragement, ....

Yeah well it does look a bit "pretty" to be a real tool....
I kinda comes under the heading of 'Too good to be used'.
The one I made was a simple bulb shape & nowhere near as shiney as that &
I don't feel bad about tossing it into the tool box or dropping it on the concrete.

Nice work just the same, but more suited to being a letter-opener in a flash office....

I suppose you'd better get to the POINT & tell us what the timber is &
what sort of finish you put on it... after AWL, this is a woodworking forum.

I don't know if you can STEEL your selves to HANDLE any more of this
HARDENED dribble without loosing your TEMPER.
I haven't even SCRATCHED the surface yet but think I've PUNished the topic enough.
I'll go now...

[silentC]

I suppose you'd better get to the POINT & tell us what the timber is & what sort of finish you put on it

I dare not, least someone leaps out and tells me that the finish is the wrong kind, or flammable, or both and that the timber is only good for firewood ;)

Actually, to tell the truth, I don't know what the timber is and I was hoping someone could tell me. It's a reddish brown colour and the grain is very straight. No figure to speak of. Not super hard but fairly heavy.

I just finished it with shellac and buffed it with furniture polish. The ferrule is a bit of brass water pipe that I found at the local rubbish tip.

By the way, I do use it AWL the time, wouldn't be much POINT in making it otherwise. :D

[q9]

silentC,

About 15 years ago I read every book I could find on blacksmithing and steel tempering. I believe what I have described is a "consensus" view on the process.

If you find any information different or erroneous I would be happy to hear. I have since filled my head with much more useless/useful information, something is bound to fall out :)

[silentC]

q9,

Didn't mean to imply that you were incorrect, merely that there seems to be a bewildering range of advice on the subject. People are adamant that their way is best. The consensus view, if it can be found, seems to be the sensible path to take.

Thanks again.

[q9]

silentC,

Wasn't taking any offence, just letting everyone know where the procedure came from (ie multiple sources).

At the time I was interested in knife making, but I never actually got around it.

[Zed]

My post wasnt supposed to be the be all and end all, it is just how I remember doing it when I weas an apprentice 20 yrs ago. the filing down method i rabbit on about is definately howwe did it back then and so is the hardening - I cant remember if we tempered our punches as my punch is now so old and used its a bright shiny silver again from me cleaning it... but thats how we used to do it in school..

speaking of making knives has anyone made any damascan steel ? is it hard ? what sort of stock do you need ? it must be a pain in the to do it woild take forever...

[q9]

Some of the Japanese techniques I think are similar, but different (of course :) ).

I seem to remember that it consists of starting with a soft iron core that is beaten into a thin foil which is placed into hot ashes and it absorbs carbon that way. The foil is folded over and over onto itself so that the layers weld themselves together. The idea is that the core remains quite soft and flexible, while the outer layers are hard and will hold an edge (as the carbon content increases with each sucessive layer).

Very labour intensive, and I suspect requires a fair degree of skill and practice to be able to make anything, and to get the hardness right. Probably why things like this made by hand are so horridly expensive.

[arose62]

SilentC, you've inspired me!

[arose62]

Now I've set myself up for a critique of my photographic technique....

For those who want to know:

wood - bit of neighbour's fence, picked up from footpath
pointy bit - left over nail from fixing floor in kitchen
ferrule - bit of copper pipe found walking home from work
finish - Shellawax
inspiration - Colen Clenton ($203.50 for one of his scratch awls!)

Cheers,
Andrew

[arose62]

Oops - thought I'd attached it to the previous post.

[silentC]

Nice one Andrew.

Be nice if we could get $200+ for ours. I might be able to give up the day job!! Wonder how many he sells :rolleyes:

[arose62]

Well, SilentC, I didn't get $200+ for this one, but it *did* get me free use of a DeWalt thicknesser ($980).

My mate is having his house rebuilt, and I dropped around to see the progress. He'd saved all the hardwood from the frame, and was happily running it through his new thicknesser toy. He gave me a bit, and muttered about seeing an awl in a catalogue for over $100.

I gave him this a couple of days later, made from his wood, and he promised me that it bought me all the thicknessing time I wanted.

Cheers,
Andrew

[silentC]

Heeey, I like the scabbard! I'll pinch that idea and make one for mine. :D

[BobR]

Great job. Just what I need - but not for $200 :D . Using the piano as a backdrop adds a bit of class to the image.

Bob

[vsquizz]

Youse guys do want to leave these tools lying around, they might Awl get pinched. So next time your flying make sure you put them in your hand baggage to take with you.:D . You'll be popular at the check-in.


Cheers

[tong]

ouch