Thread: Playing with some HSS

Rob

That's interesting. As it is a subject that interests me I have toyed with the idea of repurposing blades. i have not done it because of the issues with joining dissimilar metals, the need to heat treat the likes of HSS if too much heat reached the cutting edge, but most of all because I have not had the time.

Regards
Paul

I've also wanted to stick bits of HSS to mild steel, and had a few tries with zero success. Silver-solder didn't work for me at all (tried a couple of different paste fluxes). Stick-welding with mild-steel rods was amusing- it looked great but after cooling the job (slowly), I broke the join easily in my hands (thus confirming what I'd been told by those as knows better!). Brazing seems like the best bet, but I don't have access to a suitable torch. I would've first tried borax for flux as that's what we used back in the day on the farm, but maybe that's not the one? What fluxes did you use, Rob?

What sort of gear did Stanley et al use to make their laminated blades? I've always assumed it was a variant of 'forge-welding'. The joint is usually easy to spot, but dead-straight & flawless - be nice to emulate that!

Cheers,

The Flux I have is this
JM Tenacity 4A GP SB Flux Paste | BOC Gas

I was given a small sample to try and it worked . I was also given a Borax sample . What do I do with that . Crush and mix with water to a paste to apply ? The gas I’m using is Oxy / LPG . I went to that after years of renting the Acetylene as well as Oxy and Argon . I’d like The Acetylene back one day . I could do more with it .
Ian , an interesting fact About the HSS and joining to other metals was I had the same as you doing a turning chisel with HSS to mild steel rod , same diameters . I welded using the Mig which has a wire with some carbon in it I’d say because it hardens when quenched . It has to have this to make it a firm springy wire to travel down the line to he tip I think and not bend under the friction . So I welded it and it broke in my hands after wards . No good . I did another and it’s still together . I haven’t tried to break it . May do that and see .
When me and Peter made those bolting irons a while back and posted here A Bolting iron. We used HSS for the cutting ends and they were welded onto tool steel using the Mig welder , most probably 01 ? Just a collection of old wood chisel lengths . The HSS is the 90 degree add ons . Now none of those broke off and they have taken a fair pounding during use with a hammer from behind as well .
So maybe HSS onto plane or spoke shave blade with Mig will work too ?

Rob

Originally Posted by auscab

The Flux I have is this
JM Tenacity 4A GP SB Flux Paste | BOC Gas

I was given a small sample to try and it worked . I was also given a Borax sample . What do I do with that . Crush and mix with water to a paste to apply ? The gas I’m using is Oxy / LPG . I went to that after years of renting the Acetylene as well as Oxy and Argon . I’d like The Acetylene back one day . I could do more with it .
Ian , an interesting fact About the HSS and joining to other metals was I had the same as you doing a turning chisel with HSS to mild steel rod , same diameters . I welded using the Mig which has a wire with some carbon in it I’d say because it hardens when quenched . It has to have this to make it a firm springy wire to travel down the line to he tip I think and not bend under the friction . So I welded it and it broke in my hands after wards . No good . I did another and it’s still together . I haven’t tried to break it . May do that and see .
When me and Peter made those bolting irons a while back and posted here A Bolting iron. We used HSS for the cutting ends and they were welded onto tool steel using the Mig welder , most probably 01 ? Just a collection of old wood chisel lengths . The HSS is the 90 degree add ons . Now none of those broke off and they have taken a fair pounding during use with a hammer from behind as well .
So maybe HSS onto plane or spoke shave blade with Mig will work too ?

Rob

Rob

My understanding of MIG wire is that, as you have noted, it is a high carbon steel (my expert welding mate alerted me to this a while back when I was welding up a chisel) so it can be used on high carbon steel and can be considered similar to low hydrogen stick rods.

The accepted technique for using high carbon material is to preheat both parts to be welded. This is to remove moisture as that becomes an impurity in the weld and also, in the case of a stick welder, the weld will flow much more easily. This level of heat is moderate. Too hot to handle but no significant colour. You will be able to watch the moisture come out of the steel as the heat is applied. I just use an LPG bottle.

Mig welding can look really good, but can be deceptive as the weld may just be sitting on the surface. In this regard a stick weld is better. It is all about successful penetration. It could be this is why some of the MIG welds failed and some were successful, but I can only guess.

HSS is high carbon steel with added material (Tungsten, Vanadium and Cobalt) and as such is a very variable alloy. It could be that a technique with one sample of HSS will work well but not with another sample being of a different composition. Possibly the trick is to have several pieces with which to experiment, but I appreciate this is often impractical.

My reading is that stainless steel rods may work well.

I would pay particular attention to the weld profile (Vee-weld) as that will both balance the weld to keep the blade straight and aid penetration right into the root which is the critical part. MIG with it's small diameter wire is ideal for a small job like a spokeshave blade, but the temptation is to fill the weld at one hit. and all too easy to do with the MIG. I think I would look at a stick welder with a small diameter rod (1.6mm). I would be interested to experiment with both low hydrogen and Stainless rods and I don't know which would work best if indeed either would work.

Although HSS will stand much higher temperatures than high carbon steel without drawing the temper, I think I would try to keep the tip cool if possible (wet rag may help). I have no idea how to heat treat HSS so that could be a problem if it was me.

It will be most interesting to see how your blade stands up over time and sharpening. Thanks for posting.

Regards
Paul

Thanks Paul .
I did try the blade , I ground sharpened and honed and it felt as tough as other HSS Ive done . It shaved good but then I discovered the blade was around 4mm to long .
I had it back as far as it would go and at that I could get a shaving but I couldn't adjust it forward because the lever tightening screw was going through the hole in the blade where the screw for the lever goes as well . And it was right at the back of that hole . So no forward movement . When I took it far enough to clear the hole, 3 to 4mm is sticking out the mouth . So Ill re grind and try again .

I just did flat matching grinds , no V to fill . one was on an angle of about 25 degrees. I was surprised by how little the pieces warped or shifted through the heat and cool cycle. They were just lying flat and not clamped .

What I thought may be a better way would be to water putty the pieces down onto the cement sheet I'm using . Sitting on small Bronze rod off cuts and with a heating gap at the join . Maybe 10mm clear each side . This would hold things still and in place and no heat would touch the ends . I think from what Ive read that HSS can be got quite hot , Like red hot and still be good . Yellow or white hot causes a problem I'm pretty sure .

One thing you cant go doing is quenching the thing . One for the join but also because the 01 would be brittle enough to snap with a tap on something hard.

Rob

Originally Posted by IanW

What sort of gear did Stanley et al use to make their laminated blades? I've always assumed it was a variant of 'forge-welding'. The joint is usually easy to spot, but dead-straight & flawless - be nice to emulate that!

Their laminated blades weren't HSS, just a high carbon steel with some extra alloying elements Stanley Laminated Blades – Swedish Iron – galootopia. I know that sounds like HSS, but proper HSS has a much warmer colour than the laminated blades.

Stanley Australia did make an actual HSS-tipped blade which was either soldered or brazed on.

We have a lot of welded HSS slotting tools at work that we make in-house, I'll try to remember to ask how they do it.

Originally Posted by auscab

Thanks Paul .
I did try the blade , I ground sharpened and honed and it felt as tough as other HSS Ive done . It shaved good but then I discovered the blade was around 4mm to long .
I had it back as far as it would go and at that I could get a shaving but I couldn't adjust it forward because the lever tightening screw was going through the hole in the blade where the screw for the lever goes as well . And it was right at the back of that hole . So no forward movement . When I took it far enough to clear the hole, 3 to 4mm is sticking out the mouth . So Ill re grind and try again .

I just did flat matching grinds , no V to fill . one was on an angle of about 25 degrees. I was surprised by how little the pieces warped or shifted through the heat and cool cycle. They were just lying flat and not clamped .

What I thought may be a better way would be to water putty the pieces down onto the cement sheet I'm using . Sitting on small Bronze rod off cuts and with a heating gap at the join . Maybe 10mm clear each side . This would hold things still and in place and no heat would touch the ends . I think from what Ive read that HSS can be got quite hot , Like red hot and still be good . Yellow or white hot causes a problem I'm pretty sure .

One thing you cant go doing is quenching the thing . One for the join but also because the 01 would be brittle enough to snap with a tap on something hard.

Rob

Rob

Nothing is ever easy is it?

I don't think letting the joint slowly cool is a problem. The ordinary steel will benefit from being annealed and the HSS requires that. If you ever go down the stick weld method I forgot to mention that with Low hydrogen rods you need to heat those as well as the work pieces. In fact without doing this the rods are infuriatingly sticky: Enough to make you want to hurl things across the workshop, utter expletives and become irreversibly manic!

Regards
paul

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

We have a lot of welded HSS slotting tools at work that we make in-house, I'll try to remember to ask how they do it.

Elan

That will be interesting.

Thanks in advance. (No pressure).



Regards
Paul

Oxy weld or the electronic version of it called TIG might work using filler from one or both of the parent metals. That is the beauty of Oxy or Tig, the filler can be anything. I would not use Oxy/LPG but these days Acetylene bottles can be exchanged from several different sources without the BOC tax. I shudder at the amount I paid them for yearly fees over forty years or so.

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

.......Stanley Australia did make an actual HSS-tipped blade which was either soldered or brazed on......

That's de one I was talking about. They certainly weren't brazed together, there was no hint of other material in the join, which you could just make out on the ones I had due to a slight difference in colour/shade between the two parts.

I went through a couple of them, the last one I got I found hanging in a rather shop-soiled packet in a country hardware store in about 1990, which was a good while after it had been made. I thought they were pretty good at the time, but the thicker blades from the likes of Veritas, Hock, IBC, et al are my preference these days.

Paul, HSS is certainly a variable feast, and while the basic mix of ingredients may be much the same, I guess the proportions vary a little depending on intended use. I've used quite a bit of HSS bought from McJing's, for plane blades, & found some variation in how well they take an edge. They are all ok, but I have to work harder on some bits to get really clean edges...

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

there was no hint of other material in the join

Not sure I agree with that assessment; I had one as well, which I sold not too long ago, and I could see a fine line of something in the join.
I can't seem to find my pics, but Peter McBride has some photos on his site High Speed Steel Stanley., as does this guy Stanley HSS iron, and there is definitely something in there

They’re silver soldered; I have around a dozen Stanley and Titan HSS irons and can see the filler metal. It’ll be a high temp solder with high (~50%) silver content, similar to what is used for soldering CT tipped tooling.

I have noticed that the Titan irons were always a pig to flatten. When they cleaned off the flux I think they used a bloody angle grinder because the backs are always slightly hollow, some of them I gave up on and have decided to put 15 degree back bevels on. The Stanleys on the other hand were much more precisely made and no more warped than a standard iron.

Originally Posted by Chief Tiff

They’re silver soldered; I have around a dozen Stanley and Titan HSS irons and can see the filler metal. It’ll be a high temp solder with high (~50%) silver content, similar to what is used for soldering CT tipped tooling.

I have noticed that the Titan irons were always a pig to flatten. When they cleaned off the flux I think they used a bloody angle grinder because the backs are always slightly hollow, some of them I gave up on and have decided to put 15 degree back bevels on. The Stanleys on the other hand were much more precisely made and no more warped than a standard iron.

OK, thanks CT & Elan, I stand corrected. I guess the silvery metal didn't show up enough to register in my eyes, it was a very neat join on the ones I had. The last blade I had went to my brother in a plane which was actually his, but had been in my custody for about 20 years. It was well-worn then, & may be used up by now, but if he's still got it I'll try & get some pics of the blade next time I'm there, for future reference. Both of the two-part blades I had were Stanleys, so I didn't have any flatness issues, thankfully. They were a revolution in their day, but I think we have even better choices now (at greater cost!)....

Cheers,

I have wondered how this process was done commercially. It occurred to me that HSS planer blades are made in a similar fashion. This is a small planer blade where the insert is clearly visible, but no clear evidence of how the join is achieved.

P1050994 (Medium).JPGP1050995 (Medium).JPGP1060004 (Medium).JPG

There is no "joining" material so my guess is something along the lines of heat induction similar to spot welding, but along the whole length. If that is the case it would not be possible to replicate it outside of a specialised industrial environment. It could be that some type of flux is used, but that would disappear in the bonding process. Whatever the process it must be fairly robust to withstand the forces generated by the rotating planer blades. The Stanley spokeshave therefore would have an easy time even allowing that it is a butt joint with a single surface rather than the rebated joint.

Regards
Paul