[TheForge] Hammer heat treating/stainless coloration

[Bruce Freeman]

How 'bout oven tempering and getting your "progressive
temper" (or toughness, actually) from layered steels: 
mild around the eye, with tool steel faces.  A variant
of the approach used in colonial times for putting a
bit (cutting edge) in a wrought iron axe head.
Bruce
NJ
--- Jerry Frost <frosty at customcpu.com> wrote:

> 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
> 
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