Anneal and cut RR track or heat and chisel?

[Jesse Smith]

I have some railroad track that I want to turn into knives. Yes, I know I can use it for anvils, etc. but this is what I want to do with some of it.

I cut an 8" length off with a cutting wheel, and now I want to reduce the bottom plate and the upright piece into strips 8" long and roughly blade width wide. The actual top part of the rail I'll draw out with a buddy's power hammer or on mine someday when I get it built.

Originally I planned to anneal the 8" length of track in my forge then cut it from both ends with my port-a-band saw, but then I thought it might be quicker and easier to just cut the strips with a chisel while it's hot.

The plan to anneal would be to stick it in my propane forge, heat it up then shut the forge down and close it up with firebrick to hold the heat in. Maybe use the PID controller to control the cooling rate. I don't know how well that will work. So my worry is that it might cool too fast and I end up still not being able to cut it with the band saw. But on the other hand, that's a lot of weight to be handling at forging temps if I decide to hot chisel it. I'm not really worried about handling it, but I've never split anything with a chisel yet, so I don't know how doable splitting 1/2" 1080-ish metal is.

So how would y'all go about this project?

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Depending on where the track was ( in a curve or a straight) the steel can range from 1055 to 1080. As an average it runs around 65-70% carbon. The exact content and alloying could only be found with an assay. Most folks just treat it as 1070.

For annealing in a basic forge, heat it above non-magnetic, let it cool to black ( below 900F), and quench in water. Then heat to below non-magnetic ( 1200F range) and hold for 10 minutes or more and let cool to black. Quench in water.
If you have a controlled oven, you can heat to 1250F and hold for an hour, cool to 900F at 50F/hr, and quench in water.

By far the best way to cut it up is take it to a machine shop and have them slice it up on the saw.
You can weld a plate to the side and chuck it in the HF band saw and use the gravity cutting to slice it up if you are patient.
I don't think a chisel is a good system.




I know you said this is what you want to do, but you have to ask yourself why you would spend many hours and many dollars to get what is a lesser version of Aldo's 1075. A 48"X2"X.25" bar is $38.

 

[Rick Marchand]

I agree with Stacy's last point. There is a LOT of work involved in reducing RR track to barstock. If(big IF) I were to attempt it I would first cut all the webbing out. At the junction of the base and upright and under the rail. You are left with only two decent options for the top rail. You can have it cut down its length or cut in small sections perpendicular to its length. The latter involves even more work as you SHOULD be forging/drawing/reducing it out in the direction of its original "length". There is a "grain" to steel that is a product of how it was made. Mills reduce metal in one direction and any impurities get stretched out along the length... This is a good thing and done intentionally. Not to the same extent as wood, obviously but a comparison can be made. Grain is always stronger when running lengthwise.