[TheForge] Superquench/hardening power hammer dies

[PlumDon at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/30/2004 5:21:24 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
schade at acegroup.cc writes:

First  thanks for all the comments.

The original question was in reference to  hammer dies 


Thanks for trying to bring this thread back to the original and more  
blacksmithing related question. I would like to again pose the question as to  how 
many are actually using non-heat treated dies for the hammers. If you are  
generally using 4140, 4340, 5160, etc., and making the effort to only hit hot  
metal, do we really need to harden and temper? 
 
I guess my main concern would be that you might forget and bang some cold  
metal sometime, put in some nicks and gouges that would be passed on to your  
work.  
 
Interested in some other thoughts along this line. I'm currently using a  set 
of non-heat treated fullering dies and thinking about not heat treating the  
new set I recently got from the Old Blue power hammer folks.