Horseshoes: what they is'n what they ain't...

anvilring

anvilring

Joined
Nov 29, 2000
Messages
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I've a farrier friend who swears that "St. Croix" horseshoes are made form a hadenable steel. Don't believe it! I've made him a little "test subject" so's he can find out for himself. He's VERY hard headed! ( like I'm not.....) :)

They do make sort of a cool looking "almost" knife. The same kind of "almost" knives I used to make from railroad spikes.........

www.flex.net/~mitchwilkins/knife/forum/hs01.jpg


www.flex.net/~mitchwilkins/knife/forum/hs02.jpg

www.flex.net/~mitchwilkins/knife/forum/hs03.jpg
 
I've made a handful of horse-shoe knives similar to ones I've seen J. post on the for sale forum. I cut the shoe in half, then band-saw a slot into it (thickness wise).

Wedge a piece of 1/8" 1084 in there and forge weld it together. Forge to shape.

Viola! :D
 
Yep, I've made a few horseshoe letter openers. Don't know what brand they were. Probably a little bit of everything with all the horses we've had and all the different sorts of shoes they've worn. None of them would harden enough to really be much of a cutting tool.

Thats a really neat peice though Mitch. Has a real nice shape to it :)
 
Years ago we were getting some diamond shoes that would not only harden but some of them were so hard out of the box that your hammer would just bounce off unless you heated them first. It's common to quench hot shoes for the sake of cooling and at one time some would get hard and break when you tried to close or open them cold. It was all very inconsistant, one shoe would get glass hard and another would stay dead soft. I got in the habit of never quenching them until they were down to a black heat just to be safe. Your friend probably had similar experiences and that's how he came to believe that they are "hardenable". Some were and maybe there are still some that are.

I think the manufacturers fixed most of those problems. It is a problem because we don't want hard shoes or shoe stock that we have to fuss over like tool steel. I can tell you for a fact there were complaints and I even returned some shoes. This was mid to late 80's. I was away from farriery for a while and since back haven't seen any shoes that would harden to any extent worth mentioning.
 
I still make a few letter opener novelty knives from horse shoes.
I have had a couple harden a bit when tested. I am not saying how hard they were rockwell but they did snap not bend like mild steel. I always sell them as soft letter openers anybody gets a hard one its a bonus.

Edited I would also add I like to look for the old one. Not the factory made continuos ones.
SOme of the real old ones from the abandoned gold town are soft rought iron and etch nice.

FOr all I know they were hand made by a farrirer my brother Is a black smith by trade and he did a farrier cause for a few months on a traning faRM. He came home with a weat bag full of shoes he made himself. He gave them away at demonstrations before I got into knife makeing. Some time before he got kicked in the head and decided he had had enough.
 
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