[TheForge] Stainless steel tools

[Saint Phlip]

You _could_ make hardies and such out of stainless, but there's no
particular reason to. The idea of heating the metal up is to make it
soft, and a hard hardy will cut a soft metal no matter what its
composition.

However, when you're dealing with stainless steels, you're dealing
with a whole different sort of beast. Most stainlesses will have a
very narrow temperature working window, and you're just going to have
to figure out which window you need for your particular alloy.
Stainless steels can have other odd characteristics, too, such as
being "red short", and what not.

You _DO_ have a bit of an advantage over most of us, though- since
you're getting the metal as cut offs from a company which presumably
specified which alloy they wanted for their projects, you can ASK
which alloy it is, then look it up to find out what its specific
characteristics are. Then, you can find out what those characteristics
REALLY MEAN when you have a piece under the hammer.

I suggest that you plan on using it for projects that you don't have
your heart set on doing absolutely right in the two hours you have to
play on Saturday afternoon, before gifting it to that special person
Saturday night- it may cooperate perfectly, and then again, maybe not
;-)

On 1/2/07, Harry <iowaharry at fastmail.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>    If I am to work with stainless should I make hardies and such out of
>    stainless as well? And on the subject of stainless does it forge
>    well? I haven't tried any yet but they produce a lot of stainless
>    scrap at work. I was looking at a 2" shaft they were throwing away
>    and thinking it could be used for a lot of things...if it can be
>    forged. I don't have a plasma cutter so it would have to be cut the
>    old fashioned way. What I have been working with so far would be
>    A36, leaf springs, any bits of steel that were handy. I have some
>    fairly large gauge copper wire I have been playing with as well.
>
> Glad the holidays are over.
> Harry, aka Ebeneezer
> --
>  Harry
>  iowaharry at fastmail.net

-- 
Saint Phlip

Heat it up
Hit it hard
Repent as necessary.

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

Psalm 146
King James Bible