I've only fire-worked small tools but I did wince when I saw you going to use the tool after hardening without tempering. But I found it instructive to see just how brittle untempered steel can be. You learn a lot from mistakes whether they are your own or other peoples.
Super brittle. I’m glad it was even remotely useful to watch. I knew it would be brittle and wasn’t really hitting it for real but now I know exactly how brittle.
By the way, it looks like it broke right where the top of the water was during quenching. Also, yes, I am sure that tempering was a very necessary step for that tool. I would love to see you try to make another froe.
if you deform steel by striking it with a hammer, it will harden and become fragile. that is why wooden mallets are most commonly used for pounding froes into the end wood.
True. I can confirm. The main issue is the quantity of splitting we are doing. The wooden mallets are slow, and then the mallet breaks if I go too hard. Metal on metal is not ideal, but it splits quickly before it deforms and or breaks. Production often makes it easy to justify cutting corners unfortunately.
8:44 Regular steel does harden- not like drill rod or tool steel or spring steel, but 10:54 it does harden. As the other poster mentioned it broke at the waterline… If you evenly cherry red your blade and only quench the cutting/riving edge that’s going to give you a ghetto hardened blade edge and if you can keep the heat from migrating back to the edge while not cooling the backbone to quickly you’ll wind up with a farmer tough tool. And don’t hit your tools with steel hammers while using them…
I've only fire-worked small tools but I did wince when I saw you going to use the tool after hardening without tempering. But I found it instructive to see just how brittle untempered steel can be. You learn a lot from mistakes whether they are your own or other peoples.
Super brittle. I’m glad it was even remotely useful to watch. I knew it would be brittle and wasn’t really hitting it for real but now I know exactly how brittle.
By the way, it looks like it broke right where the top of the water was during quenching. Also, yes, I am sure that tempering was a very necessary step for that tool. I would love to see you try to make another froe.
Interesting observation I bet you are right. And yes tempering will definitely be happening next time.
if you deform steel by striking it with a hammer, it will harden and become fragile. that is why wooden mallets are most commonly used for pounding froes into the end wood.
True. I can confirm. The main issue is the quantity of splitting we are doing. The wooden mallets are slow, and then the mallet breaks if I go too hard. Metal on metal is not ideal, but it splits quickly before it deforms and or breaks. Production often makes it easy to justify cutting corners unfortunately.
8:44
Regular steel does harden- not like drill rod or tool steel or spring steel, but 10:54 it does harden. As the other poster mentioned it broke at the waterline…
If you evenly cherry red your blade and only quench the cutting/riving edge that’s going to give you a ghetto hardened blade edge and if you can keep the heat from migrating back to the edge while not cooling the backbone to quickly you’ll wind up with a farmer tough tool.
And don’t hit your tools with steel hammers while using them…
Well it certainly looked the part.
Looked great, if i was making wall art it would have been a success story.
You'll have to fight that tree for dibs on the one leaf spring.
Ya i almost have to dig when i look through the scrap metal now.
Bahaha sparks to the junk.... Slight reposition.
Ha pretty much, throw it right back in the junk pile where it came from. New video title?