wagon wheel steel

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Marcel J.B. Morin

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Hi all. I went to a friend's remote fishing camp yesterday, and while there he gave me two old wagon wheels. Is the steel on these usable to make knives? Thanks

Marcel
 
Marcel,
I don't think that wagon wheel steel will work for making knife blades. If I remember correctly most wagon wheels are made of wrought iron. Wrought iron does not have enough carbon to harden properly. It does make good hardware (gaurds, and buttcaps) though. Wrough iron has a distenctive look do to silica impurities. They give the iron a fibrous look they also give the piece a degree of corosion resistance and makes it more maliable. Hope this helps.

Tom
 
Marcel,

Most definatly it is made from wrought iron, (unless it was made in the last 25 years). Since true wrought iron basicly has no carbon in it, it will not hold any sort of edge.

True wrought iron is getting harder to come by, so you definately have something of value. As Tom said, you can use it for fixtures on your blades, or if you are like me, you can take a piece of it and forge weld a piece high carbon steel onto it then forge up a blade. A method that has been used by smiths for over a thousand years. It makes blade with a nice sharp edge and a body of ductile iron.

The catch is wrought iron melts at a higher temp than carbon steels so getting them to weld together takes a bit of practice and excellent heat control.
 
Thanks for the responses. I will take the wheels and use them for fittings. There are either three or four wheels available and they are about 4 inches wide by 4 feet tall. Should make a lot of fittings..

Marcel
 
Yup, wrought iron, probably. The ones I have area very low grade of iron; come apart like rotten rope easily if you try to forge it down on the edge grain, even at yellow-orange heat; has to be constantly welded back together with borax at a white heat, etc. If you manage to weld and reweld a billet of this stuff until it starts to clean up, and stiffen up a bit, it becomes nice stuff to workl with. I have never found it worth the trouble. 'some folks, like Ray Richards, use it with great sucess. Maybe Ray has better iron. :p
 
Marcel J.B. Morin said:
Thanks for the responses. I will take the wheels and use them for fittings. There are either three or four wheels available and they are about 4 inches wide by 4 feet tall. Should make a lot of fittings..

Marcel
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Marcel: If you want to come down we can weld it to a core of Hi-carbon.
 
Not all wagon wheels are wrought iron. They could also just be iron. If you know what your looking for you can tell from the outer apperance. Normally if you look on the outer edges of the wheel you should be able to see some layers. Like Richard said the wagon wheels are the lowest grade of WI and it will fall apart while being forged. I use alot of it for fittings but I do very little actual forging. I'll flaten and straighten it but the rest is done with other tools....
 
Anybody have any closeups of etched WI? I'm courious to see what it is you guys are seeing in this stuff. Fitzo is looking for a picture he has, thought maybe one of you had one. I have a bunch of old farm wheels, impliments, case tractor parts. Maybe I have something that would look good as far as fittings go. Wish I was closer to IG!
 
Wrought Iron is good for forging and forges really good --- the reason that its so sought after ,
but it has a window that you can work to hot crumbles to cold splits but when you learn the stuff you will use it a lot when hot move slowly when it becomes bouncy on the anvil reheat--- heat to a red not yellow it will stay together

to weld bring up slow and to a faint yellow with borax bubbling and tap do not hit it hard it will crumble == welds great btw just takes time to find that sweet spot
when etched it looks like Damascus due to silica's in the iron its very tuff reason wheels were made from it very wear resistant for cost of use .most all parts of old wagons was made of iron most of those being wrought --
old bridges a good place to get iron also RR bridges were built long ago, and while your cutting out parts for guards or welded Damascus don't for get to get a section of RR track for your buddys that need anvils :D :D
and its best to harvest your wrought iron in the darkness of night wearing dark clothing and borrow a frinds car or truck .
and in doing so you will be able to tell your customer the history of the steel and you your self will know its origin. seam very important these days :rolleyes: in telling this I m not responsible for your safety nor you jail term nor am I recommending this method .but the dewalt 3000 volt portable saw would be a excellent choice :cool:
 
Ron, I have had better luck with the wagon wheel at cooler heats also as long as I don't try to do to much per heat. The anchor chain is alot different since its a much higher grade. I forged a small letter openner out of it a few weeks ago and also tried doing a hawk but drifting the eye it fell apart on me. Have you tried drifting any yet? I'm sure I can do a forge welded hawk out of it but prefer one out of solid bar.
 
Guy Thomas said:
Anybody have a source of anchor chain wrought iron they'd care to share?
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Are you sure anchor chain??? Damn!!!!! I am going to make a trip down to the docks. We have the biggest fish port on the east coast here. :eek: :D :D
 
Yeah IG, old anchor chain from what I've heard is a good bit better quality wrought iron than the wagon wheel rims. Check around, you just might find something! :D
 
I posted this picture once before and I think it should help you to identify the wrought iron links. You want to look for the layers like you see on these. Also the really old anchors are made from WI.
PDRM0743.JPG
 
Robert, Right off hand I'm guessing maybe 10", the width of the wi is 1 1/4 to an 1 1/2". If you look at the lower right of each link you can see where the weld was made. I was really surprized after I had made one of my fittings out of the welded section and it was not noticable.
 
Sence moving back to Washingtion I have noticed everywhere I go I see wooden wagon wheel rims leaning agenst fences, sides of buildings and fill second hand stores. A few questions, first what's a going price on a rim and second without cutting and doing a bend what's a non destructive test I can do on them. Thank you
 
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