[TheForge] 1045 Steel (?)

[Dann Johnson]

I believe that  railroad spikes marked "HC" are 1040 or 1045  steel.
A friend of mine  gave me  two  5- gallon buckets filled with  old 
railroad spikes, that cost him  a dollar a pail.
The buckets were so heavy that the handle tore loose from one  of the 
plastic buckets, when I tried to pick it up.

I'd guess that you are just looking at new steel, but there is a ton 
of good old carbon steel out there for scrap prices.
http://www.anvilfire.com/21centbs/jnkstee1.jpg   Sometimes it is even 
cheaper than that, if you do a drive through the country and can talk 
a farmer into selling that rusting piece of old machinery sitting in 
the corner of his yard.

7 or 8 years ago, I bought a combination straight pein / cross pein 
hammer  from Nathan Roberts.  I love that hammer  and think it is 
worth the $40 plus dollars that I paid for it.   I learned that 
Nathan  originally  made his hammers using the  1045 steel  from old 
( pull type- ground drive ) manure spreader axles.

I've seen countless of these old manure spreaders sell to iron 
scrappers at auction for $10 or so dollars each. I bought an old 12 
foot 'digger'  that also had a good steel axle for  $5 at farm 
auction. One manure spreader axle is enough to make  a 
dozen  (or  two)  hammers.

Knowing it was good steel, I felt guilty allowing my son to cut up 
the axle  of another one, to be tossed into a load of  scrap last 
fall.  I'd bet a telephone call to an iron scrapper would find you 
some locally.

There was a lot of good carbon steel on old farm machinery.

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Dann