Ahh built me a chisel!

And down the slope you go

Dennis

>I like it and you can always reheat it and make it harder.

You did good.

Dennis

remove nospam for email

Ya done good...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>Very good! That's an understatement! My hats off to you Luke. A fine job!

Re: Ahh built me a chisel!

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>Congrats on your newborn chisel! You must be very proud (I would be!). Since you wrote that you had no experience with heat treating, I would like to hear how you approached the anealing and the re-hardening and tempering.

BTW, I just "got" your email address. :-)

Re: Ahh built me a chisel!

Luke Herzberg

>Hi Don, I had a general idea of what I needed to do for the heat treating, both from various WC posts and a few past books and magazine articles and, I suppose, a college course or two (hmmm, if only I had bothered to refresh my memory). I have a hand cranked forge (hand me down from Grandpa) that had just been collecting dust in the shed, so I yarded that out and fired it with some hardwood chunks, presently being coke-less.

For annealing I brought it up to a medium red, then removed it from the heat, which in retrospect was too rapid cooling, resulting in a bit of air hardening, making shaping more difficult.

I did most of the grunt work with files and a drum sander on my bench grinder. For flattening I used sandpaper on my tablesaw top. I brought it back up to a medium red, quenched in water and got a lot of warping. Reheated, flattened with hammer, reheated, requenched and warping was minimal. For annealing I layed it back on the warm coals, top side down, for about a minute.

OK, mistakes. Annealing; I didn't let it sit at temperature long enough and cooled too quickly.

Quenching; probably tilted when contacting water on first try, causing the warping.

Tempering; too warm I think. I didn't polish the steel before tempering so I couldn't see the steel turn color, plus it was dark out already.

I made the handle from a chunk of walnut and a piece of brass pipe. No lathe here, so it's sort of a crude, bulbous octagon shape. I've pared some nice shavings with it and the edge seems to have decent durability so far.

Incidentaly, on Saturday morning after I was done, I got a book I had ordered in the mail, Fine Woodworking's 'Hand Tools' collection of articles. It has several very good articles on blacksmithing and heat treating. Taking some of its advice, I have already started on chisel #2 and annealed it with an overnight stay in the wood stove.

- Luke

Re: Ahh built me a chisel! *LINK*

Dennis

>Sounds like you should be quenching in oil to me. A good read on heat treating by Ron Hock is at the link below.

Works for me so far.

Better start saving car spring,bed rails for future projects.

Dennis

remove nospam for email


Ron Hock on heat treating

Hand-cranked Forge

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>Oh, you have a forge! I am not going to be making a chisel anytime soon, but I did not see how I could do something that large without some kind of forge. I think I could do little molding plane blades with the two-torch method, but I figure that will not work for anything bigger.

I enjoy reading about others' experiences with forging. If I take enough notes, maybe I will know what I am doing when I get a round tuit.

If you do it again, let us know how it goes!

A cheap forge, and more heat treat info

Peter L Berglund in Denver

>cheap, easily made forges: http://www.reil1.net/design.shtml

everything you ever wanted to know about heat treating:


http://www.threeplanes.net/toolsteel.html

p

Re: Hand-cranked Forge

Dennis

>What little bit of smithy work i have done,a fireplace or even a grill will work for smaller stuff.

The price of tools for blacksmithing today is not cheap for sure so its make your own time with me.

Seems to me that years ago the blacksmiths and woodworker's must have had some kind of trade for skills relationship going on.

Dennis

remove nospam for email

Re: Hand-cranked Forge

Jack from Maine

>Blacksmithing was more common. A blacksmith was needed in a community as much as a carpenter.So I'm sure every sizeable community had one and it was as accessable as a hardware store is today for mixing paint,building screens(heat treating chunks of steel).---Jack

Re: Hand-cranked Forge

Dennis

>Maybe your right Jack, smith's did a lot of things for lot people, iam thinking farmers,horseshoes ect but i just wonder about the toolmaking that had to go on between the smith's and the carpenters.

When i think about it,what did the local carpenter do when his favorite plane's iron got too short to use? Order a new one? And wait weeks for it to get there, maybe but i tend to think they had local smith make them one. And then there is the special tool that was needed for some project. Interesting subject to look at i think.

Dennis

remove nospam for email

Re: Hand-cranked Forge

Jack from Maine

>There's more to that story. Imagine the blacksmith needs his table repaired or a window.Seems like they would have plenty to give each other in trade.---Jack

Re: Hand-cranked Forge

Dennis

>Yes, iam thinking that way....makes me wonder if there is historical information on this subject.

Was a article in FWW few years ago that said "the cabinet maker got walnut tree from farmer over a chicken dinner that came down in storm", so now all this has me looking for more information on subject.

Dennis

remove nospam for email

Thanks; they look like good sites.

Don Thompson, Cutler Ridge, South of Miami FL

>

Re: Hand-cranked Forge

Roger Nixon

>In my area, farmers had to be pretty self sufficient and I frequently find both woodworking and blacksmithing tools at an estate auction. Fortunately, most people recoil in horror at the thought of working with hand tools so the prices are pretty good with the exception of anvils which go for around $1 - $1.50/lb.