Blacksmiths' Association
Tools & Tips
- 5 gal water
- 5lb salt
- 28oz Dawn Ulta Blue dishwashing detergent
- 8 oz Shaklee Basic-I*.
Stir this mess together and don't spill -- the salt and soap combo make a real mess.
Heat your mild/low carbon steel to yellow (nonmagnetic) and quench in Super Quench. Do NOT use on tool steel, medium, or high carbon steels (>.4%) Super Quench is far too harsh. Some of those steels will actually shatter/explode while being quenched.
* Shaklee is a company similar to Amway. Check the Yellow pages to find a representative near you.
Carl Davidson's Quick cutoff hardy really works. It can't be any easier, use just a piece of angle iron (1"x1"x1/8" works well) with one inside edge ground down to a cutting edge.
Mount this on a length off bar stock that fits your hardy hole. Attach it with a bolt after the bar has been drilled and tapped.
Soft hammers fill a niche for blacksmiths that they seldom realize they had a need for. When a regular hammer is used on hardened tools such as punch or chisel, there is always a fair chance that the tool will leave marks on the hammer face. A punch or chisel is specifically designed to be harder than anything else it might encounter, so that it can leave marks, after all. But, marks on either the hammer or anvil face are readily transferred to soft steel. This means additional time filing or grinding out those marks. By using a separate hammer for striking tools only, you can keep your good hammers in prime condition for working hot metal.
But a “dead hammer” isn’t just one that is set aside for tool striking. A “dead hammer” has been annealed so that it is “dead soft” and this provides another advantage. This allows the head of the tool to bite into the hammer face. So, should your blow be off center or less than perfect, the tool will be less likely “squirt” out of your hand and fly across the shop.
Annealing a hammer head is very simple. Cut off the existing handle and toss the hammer head in the fire. Bring the entire head up to a non-magnetic temperature (in the orange range). Place in ashes, sand, vermiculite, or some other insulating material and wait. When it’s cool, trim the left over handle to fit the hole and re-attach. Whah-lah! Instant “dead hammer”.
The making of a cold chisel was the project of the last Gathering. For those of you who were unable attend, the basics of chisel making are covered here following the same process that Jim Moran showed.
Start with some steel that has a relatively high carbon content. One of the easiest tests for carbon content is the spark test. (Outlined in greater detail in the November 2002 issue). (Figure 1) If the sparks are bright and split away from each other like a sparkler, the carbon is fairly high.
The next step is to simply taper one end until it forms a curved edge. (Figure 2) Most cold chisels from the hardware store have a nice straight edge. As it turns out, though, this is not the best form for marking lines of any length. A curved edge is much better. Although it will mark a smaller area with each cut, it can be rocked along the line to be marked very quickly and with out leaving any “end” marks.
Once the cutting edge is hammered to a pleasing shape, grind or file it to a finish.
Heat treatment is the next step. Although there are multiple ways to do this Jim demonstrated the “interrupted quench”. Take the chisel to critical temperature. This can be checked with a magnet. When the magnet stops sticking, critical temperature has been reached. Remove from the fire and quench the over half of the chisel in water, cutting edge first, until the end held by the tongs is dark red. Quickly remove from the water and clean the surface with a sanding block. In the cleaned area, which should be relatively shiny, watch carefully for a series of colors to run from the tail to the cutting edge. When the cutting edge turns bronze quickly quench the entire chisel until cold.
Finally, test the chisel. If the cutting edge holds, you’ve gotten the temper correct. If it deforms or dulls easily, it’s too soft, and the temper needs to be stopped sooner (at a lighter color). If the cutting edge chips, it’s too hard and the temper should have been stopped later (at a darker color). If the temper didn’t work right, simply repeat the heat treatment section.
by Andrew VanSchoick
Well, if you’re like me (heaven help you!), you’ve got a pile of rusty pieces of metal lying around your shop, waiting for your spouse to get rid of them while your back is turned. So far I’ve been able to keep my wife away from this pile, and in fact have been lucky enough to add to this pile fairly regularly. In my pile is a fair number of actual tools that have seen better days, and were pretty daunting for me to actually contemplate – gasp – cleaning them! Take for instance a pipe wrench on which rust has frozen the adjustment knob. All those little grooves and such… just what I need… another couple hour project.
Then I remembered and dug out of my archives an article about electrolytic rust removal. Sounds intimidating, huh? Well, I am living proof that the name is much more scary than the actual process. The process requires that you have a plastic (nonconductive) tub/tank/pail to put a couple of gallons of water in, a battery charger, a little baking soda or washing soda, and a sacrificial piece of metal (I’ve got my humble pile getting larger every day that’s just screaming for a useful end to the agony of my mangling!)
Once you’ve got these items, simply put a couple of gallons of water in the pail. Throw in a teaspoon of baking soda for the sacrificial piece of metal to the positive contact from your battery charger and place it in the water. Make sure the water doesn’t contact the battery clamp or the CLAMP becomes the sacrificial piece of metal. ($1.25 later I learned that lesson the hard-way) The negative clamp connects to the piece of metal you are trying to de-rust. That goes in the water, but not touching the sacrificial metal. Voila! In a couple of hours you’ve got a nice de-rusted piece of metal. It really is THAT SIMPLE. There’s no rocket science needed here. The instructions I read mentioned using a battery charger with a capacity of 2 amps or greater. Mine is 1 amp, and working just fine.
The water you’re using is not acidic and won’t burn your hands, but it is probably a good idea to wear rubber gloves when taking stuff in and out of the bath. Also, you should rinse the de-rusted item off, and you may wish to rub it with a scotch-brite pad to remove any loose gunk. After that, oil that nifty item and go find more stuff to de-rust!
