Hammer peened finish?

J

john0270

Joined
Feb 9, 2008
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I was doing a boring job at work where I had to wait for a machine to do its thing. Anywho I started to hammer this peice of mild steel with a 32oz ball pein hammer repeatedly... it started to make an interesting pattern(wile takeing out all the dings and scratch marks). Ok about 500 hammer blows latter I had a good patch that looked and felt pritty awsome. Now would this work with say anealed 5160(im thinking short sword)?

Anyone heard of anything like this being done?. I know it would be a great way to hide imperfections from the forging process without grinding everything absolutly flat.
 
I've seen it done on fittings, but never the blade (except forging marks that is). Carbon steels may start to work harden after awhile but that may create a certain depth to the marks. I'd be interested in seeing it done...
 
You'd probably have to hammer it cold or you will flatten out the anvil facing side while hammering the other if done at forging heat. Of course, there's probably a way around that? Either way, especially cold I'd think, is going to add a good bit of stress into the steel; make sure you normalize before heat treating. Curious to see what some of our forgers out there think.

--nathan
 
hammering cold even after normalizing wouldnt that put major stress on the metal and even cause it to crack inside. kellyw
 
Kelly, that's what I was wondering. The steel would have to be dead soft and normalized after peening. But I still wonder if high carbon steels would hold up well to peening cold.

--nathan
 
B Finnigan said:
I have done that on a couple 9260 knives in the black heat. To protect the reverse side I used a 3/4" thick block of aluminum.

Read about shot peening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_peening
Click to expand...



You wouldn't happen to have any pictures of the result? I know mild steel isn't the same as 5160, but anealed 5160 takes allot more bending and abuse the mild steel, I don't think it would be a problem doing it cold.
 
I have done one (decorative only) dagger with mild steel and peened the whole blade of it. My wrists got that tingly feeling going after peening for a good half hour straight. I would think carbon steel is probably going to be too hard to do this with.
 
Well I did some testing, The 5160 needs to be anealed, also it needs to be done on something like aluminum, or brass. Strait on the anvil it just flattens the other side. A peice of hard wood wasn't providing enough resistance, and it was getting bent. Ear protection is a must lol. I plan on doing this finish to a short sword I want to make. I might play around with an air chisel(with apropriate shapped tools) and see what kind of job that might do.
 
Even normalized mid carbon steels will play hell with cast ball peen hammers. I use only the hammers I have made from either S7 or 52100. Both will make a good clean crater on normalized mid carbon steel.
 
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