[TheForge] Hammer heat treating/stainless coloration

[Jerry Frost]

Thanks Dave.

I prefer tempering hammers with a hot drift for just 
those reasons. I like progressive tempers in struck or 
striking tools of all kinds. Progressive tempering has 
it's risks though simply because of the progressive 
stress it induces.

An oven temper is the surest way to get precise results 
though and there are a lot of tools where it's eally 
important.

The axle we used failed at the other end, twisted 
spline so we were pretty sure the flange end had no 
hidden flaws. I won't know for sure though till I've 
used it a while. I'll be holding my tongue on the lucky 
side for a while yet.

It's like an adventure isn't it. <grin>

Frosty
-------------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.

http://www.artmetalradio.com/


From: "David E. Smucker" <davesmucker at hotmail.com>


> Nice hammer Frosty!  The advantage of using your hot 
> drift to temper  is of course the fact that you get a 
> higher temperature temper in the area around the eye. 
> This results in  a tougher steel in this area.  I 
> still prefer using a oven to temper for woodworking 
> tools because it is fool proof and very repeatable. 
> Both color tempering and oven tempering can give very 
> good results.  We teach both in our class on 
> woodworking tools at the Folk School but I find that 
> those new to heat treating get better results using a 
> oven temper.
>
> Last year we had a nice hammer similar to yours crack 
> from the eye because of the way we quenched it.  This 
> hammer was made from 1080 or so the student said the 
> material was.  We re-made the hammer from 4140 and 
> oil quenched and it came out great.  He is using it 
> today as his main forging hammer. Sometimes when we 
> heat treat we know why we getting a crack --  
> sometimes I think it is that we just didn't hold our 
> mouth right.
>
> Dave Smucker