Books for heat treating

[Whiskey_Jim]

Well i tried quench the bit and then let the heat soak from the rest of the head temper it. That part went great.... except for the tink

It's a nice straw temper though

 

[Whiskey_Jim]

It's cool now and still skates my USA Nicholson on the bit. Hitting it with that hammer probably didn't help.

 

[Whiskey_Jim]

In conclusion, OP you can probably just wing it. And don't hit un tempered bits with a hammer.

 

[jake pogg]

Well...them's the breaks...Sorry about that head Jim,hope you didn't care too much about it.

I do use quite a bit of the chineseum-ish material.I find it responds well to the Normalising(three cycles,one each at above;right at,and below critical) in terms of grain reduction.

I always quench in oil,and though i usually heat it somewhat differentially i never quench just the edge(i doubt that it had any bearing on that tink though).

It's been a while since i used aute-tempering,too;nothing wrong with it in a pinch,but a couple one-hour cycles in a toaster oven separated by a cooling cycle are just better,more reliable(for any retained martensite).

But more often now i let it cool after quench;shine up a nice wide section,and run the heat from the poll toward the edge Slowly...I likes them color bands Wide,man...(i'm slow,and need time to think,and decide where to direct it;exes i temper are rarely symmetrical and heat front must be helped in direction and evenness).

You call that straw,but look how narrow them color bands are scrunched up-from where the colors are visible,it's straw how far,you figure?(surely it don't reach the edge...).

And,it's up to an individual user,of course,but straw is normally too hard for an axe.Purple or even blue is what old books call for,and i find it serves better myself as well...(in part because of the ghetto nature of such methods,retained martensite is an issue,it keeps on forming well after such crude tempering,making the tool quite harder than the colors may indicate...).

 

[Whiskey_Jim]

That was the first head i ever hung. It taughtme a lot and died teaching me.

 

[jake pogg]

Well,that was a noble life,and a dignified end....

 

[Whiskey_Jim]

That's good info and it strikes me as such with this thread idea. You can find info on this steel this heat this quench this temper heat. That's all and good but the actual task isn't so cut and dried. Then factor in that axe making was institutional knowledge passed down and these guys didn't write books.

 

[Whiskey_Jim]

I watch black and white videos and "the keen eye of yore craftsman" is always mentioned before critical XYZ task takes place.

 

[Whiskey_Jim]

I still haven't hung it on a 2x4 and cut a cast iron plate with it

 

[jake pogg]

I suppose the difference came in about the beginning of Industrial Age.Progressively since it's start the whole idea was exactly That-to make things cut&dry...(they succeded brilliantly,too.
Working with today's alloys,the more old cut&dry you can manage,the more Productive you'll be(which don't necessarily mean satisfied,entertained,et c.).

Before that,and the further back one goes,the more Art,and Magic there was in metalwork.
And one can easily go back of course,it's fairly uncomplicated to run up a bloom,and do it from scratch!
(it's super interesting to read the descriptions of the guys going from some crappy-quality ore all the way to the rifle barrel...fascinating...).
I'd like to do it once,make some iron out of local limonite,or at least buy a couple pounds of bloomery iron from Lee Sauder,and make an axe...
( i hear it's a fairly tough call,Much work involved in refining it).

 

[jake pogg]

cut a cast iron plate with it

Why would you want to do that?

 

[Square_peg]

and run the heat from the poll toward the edge Slowly...I likes them color bands Wide,man...(i'm slow,and need time to think,and decide where to direct it;exes i temper are rarely symmetrical and heat front must be helped in direction and evenness).

Good advice. And the normalizing before quench is a good idea, too.

 

[A17]

A good book for heat treating advice is Machine Tool Operation Pt. 1 Lathe Bench Forge by Henry D. Burghardt. 85% of the book is on the lathe but the other 15% is all great advice on metal working and forging.