I know this is about KNIFE making, but..

J

JoeyNumbers

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Apr 24, 2007
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I want to hammer forge a solid axe out of a piece of metal I found while walking home from work. Its a piece of galvanized steel, I'm curious if the coating of zinc oxide will affect my forging or the end result?

 
Do you know if this mystery steel will harden? You may have to forge weld a piece of carbon steel onto it to make the cutting edge, but as Sam said you should avoid it since it's galvanized. I'd scrap it and get a piece of known steel.
 
Zinc won't kill you provided you're a healthy adult and you forge it under reasonable conditions. There has been no level of exposure shown to kill humans and the level of exposure used to kill test animals was many times thicker than was necessary to completely obstruct vision. If you're forging anything in a cloud of smoke that you can't see through, you're probably not safe. If you were terribly worried about it, you could simply remove the zinc by sanding first.

All of that being said, I don't think the pipe you have has properties suitable for a blade of any sort and you'd probably want to weld a bit onto it as was suggested above.
 
Its not a pipe though, its a solid bar. My neighbor tells me its steel and used in road construction.

I think I could sand the zinc off
 
I would still highly doubt it is very suitable for the application, but it could be a fun project.
 
Sam is almost correct, It is a Anchor bolt (or more correctly a J bolt). It is most likely a low carbon steel. The zinc coating is about 1/16" thick. Use a 4" angle grinder to remove the coating. You must grind it untill it throws sparks...That is how you will know that the zinc is gone and you are down to the steel. It will take longer than you think. You will be a lot better off with a piece of a large crowbar (cheap at yard sales or flea markets). Don't be tempted to by a china made one at a discount store. Good luck.
 
Just looking into this forum quickly I wanted to suggest that if you do sand the coating off (which is a pretty good idea) I'd use a paper sanding disc rather than the normal aluminum oxide ones on an angle grinder because the alum-oxide will very quickly clog and become useless.
 
Zinc fumes may not kill you, but having had "metal fume fever" from zinc, I can report it's not much fun. All the aches and fever of the flu, without the runny nose, for 3 days.

Grinding off all the zinc will be a pain. Get a piece of steel that will be worth the work you'll put in forging it, and use the big J-bolt to hang extension cords on the wall or something.
 
Such a shame, I got all excited about the idea, haha. But I can look for another piece of metal. Thanks for the knowledge, everyone. You may have saved my life, haha. :)
 
go get some old rail from a train yard scrap im sure they will give you a small piece. talk to any maintenance crew.
 
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