steel horesshoes

rotor

rotor

Joined
Mar 18, 1999
Messages
184
what are the made of high /med/ low carbon i got a bunch.
thanks in advance Russ
 
I don't know what steel they use, but they are soft. One time I decided to make the supreme horseshoes of all time. Forged them out of 5160, hardened and tempered them. My horse rapidly developed a supreme fear of walking on sandstone. The hard shoes provided very little traction and it was like he was walking on ice. The soft shoes have much better grip. This is a long way from your question, but had to chip in. He got over it in a couple of years, but still took that first step real careful.
 
That had me laughing my butt off Ed! :D Never tried that but we would build them up with traction bars and sharp corks with stoody rod for winter. Yeah, they are just plain ol soft steel. Dont know the alloy either.
 
thanks ive got a bunch i guess i experiment a bit
thanks again Russ
 
LOL, hardened and tempered. Those would make great sliding plates for my reiners :D . The soft crap they use now will wear down to nothing in 6 weeks.
We used to have a team of percherons. Those big boys had trouble on concrete and any other hard surface like that. When you forge the shoe out of a 1"X1/4"x24" bar of steel it ends up about like a sliding shoe anyway, even with the grooves and nails. The blacksmith always had to put spots of borax on them.
 
Some things have to be made of non harden-able steel.
 High carbon steels will work-harden with time from constant pounding 
 and become brittle and can brake when you'd rather it not.
 you can case harden low carbon steels though. still not good for knives.
 
I have seen some really cool looking letter openers made from them.But they are not good for a using knife..
Bruce
 
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