Forging tooling out of square cut nails - 1900-1908 era

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Truefire

New User
Chris
I was wondering if the composition of some of the early 1900's square cut nails would be conducive to forging and making some of my own micro tooling. I'm just not sure of their content when made during that era.

Thank you,

chris
 

Gotcha6

Dennis
Staff member
Corporate Member
Most cut nails made in the last 125 years have been machine cut from steel. No need to look for antique nails. The older nails were probably of iron. At the time, it was so valuable a settler would burn down their home when they moved to retrieve the nails. You could just as easily use current cut nails for the purpose. If you're forging them be sure to re temper and anneal them. What kind of tooling are you considering? Chisels and gouges?
 

Truefire

New User
Chris
Wow, didn't know that piece of news regarding the settlers. That's quite intriguing.

The reason I had initially asked the question is because I had some of those square cut nails on hand at one time. I had initially thought they might be a better resource for doing what I was attempting to accomplish. But as I recalled after the posting, they are a brittle type nail and would not work. I guess they have an overload of carbon in them.

Yes Dennis, I suppose an ordinary nail would do much better. To answer your question, I am attempting to make some micro-tooling gouges and detail hand gouges. I have attempted to temper some metal before for tooling and although my tools turned out fairly well, its certainly a delicate balance between the heat app and cooling variation. I used propane before. I wonder if mapp gass would work better? I know there are so many factors regarding steel composition and the heat ranges to effectively temper a piece, resulting in sufficient hardness yet remaining able to be re-sharpened. Not sure if the mapp gas and composition of nails would result in tooling that is too brittle and not ductile enough.
 

Newboy

George
User
The advantage of buying a rod of tool steel instead of using scrap is: you get exactly what you want, you know exactly what type of steel it is, and it tells you exactly how to harden and temper it.
 

Endless Pursuit

New User
Jeff
At the time, it was so valuable a settler would burn down their home when they moved to retrieve the nails.

Well that proves that "settlers" didn't build my old house (240 years old) in PA. Unless they were nail prospectors or made their own. Not "ordinary" nails either. The big spikes took the edge right of a DeWalt bimetal Sawzall blade.

Back to the subject, if you have a forge, gather all the old hacksaw blades you can find. My grandfather was a blacksmith by trade and in his later years he would scavange flea markets for hack saw blades because he claimed that they were the perfect allow to make cutting tools from. It takes a lot of hacksaw blades to make one plow point. He would heat the final product "cherry red" and quench it in old motor oil which took it to the "flint" stage, polish it and then "draw it back" to a straw color. In today's lingo, it would be called hardening and tempering.
 

mkepke

Mark
Senior User
I recall that concrete nails are a popular choice for DIY micro-tools, being already hardened. Limits you in profiles though.

-Mark
 

Mark Gottesman

New User
Mark
OK. try this.
First safety warning: Goggles gloves, cotton clothing. work outdoors. fire extinguisher etc. Playing with fire.

Propane will be fine.

Rig up a magnet on a wire handle so you can touch the hot metal safely. Take one of the nails you have and heat it red hot till the magnet won't stick to it. Then quickly plunge it into a can full of oil. (I use peanut or olive for small knives) . When you pull it out, check it with a new file to see if the file will cut or if it just skates across the surface. If it does, then the item you have is a hardenable steel. It is now fully quenched and in a hard glassy state. Likely to hard to use without fear of chipping or snapping.

Next you need to temper. clean the scale off the cutting edge and either pop in a oven or toaster oven at around 350 (need to play with that temp) and cook till the surface turns a straw yellow. that is an oxide forming on the surface and will indicate the degree of softness. You can also do it with a torch, just a bit trickier, but nails are cheap.

Usually, you first rough shape the cutting tool. Heat and quench to harden then draw back to a working hardness and finally finish the edge.

Now, if the nails are already hard enough out of the box, you can grind them ,slowly to avoid heat buildup, and use them without going through all that.

I make cutters for my router plane by carefully grinding hex keys. They are easy to find by the handful for cheap, take a razor edge, come in graded sizes and hold up will in hardwood, plus the have a bend in them.

Wander over to the college in Greenville, they have a great metals dept. Maybe someone could help you over there.

Glad to try and help you with any other sort of questions you have.
 

Mike Davis

Mike
Corporate Member
I use concrete nails for small tools. They are high carbon steel hardened to quite hard without being brittle.

I grind them to shape without getting so hot as to need re-hardening.
 

Gotcha6

Dennis
Staff member
Corporate Member
If you're looking for something for micro tooling, I might suggest HF. They carry (at most stores) an assortment of small HSS metal lathe shapes including square, round and cutoff. Once shaped and sharpened up they should hold an edge very well. No tempering needed.
 

CrealBilly

New User
Jeff
I finally found a guy who sharpens and sets band mill blades. Granted he's 42 miles away but is very reasonably priced @ 5.00 per blade. He also takes junk blades to do just what you are wanting to do - make tools out of them.

I had made a few scratch stock cutters out of small pieces of junk band mill blades. They seem to work very well for that without doing nothing but filing to profile and sharpening with stones.
 
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Gotcha6

Dennis
Staff member
Corporate Member
I remember seeing similar tools on a shop crawl a few years ago at Amy Dowden's shop. They seemed to work very well. She even had one that cut beading.
 

Truefire

New User
Chris
Ok to say I am a bit overwhelmed with GREAT responses and information, would be an understatement. Wowsers! I never knew such a post would draw such high interest. Very good though. Lots of great information. I cannot for time constraints this morning respond to all of you, although I would love to. I am gleaning from all however, please know this.

I do have a question for Gottesman. <When you spoke about testing with the file> if I were to test with a file and the file would no longer cut, I would have surpassed the stage conducive to sharpening. I need the tooling to be hardened to an extent but not so much that I could not resharpen. After the tooling has been cooled down and cellular rearrangement has taken place, it will again regain its nature to be attracted to magnets just as strong as before or stronger?

I have tempered some tooling in the past with propane and old motor oil quenching and have been pleased with the results. Most all of those tools however were created from screwdrivers whereby I needed a special shaped cut on the ends for blind cutting. I totally understand all of the various compositions of steel on the market and am certain screwdrivers are composed of a fairly decent type, dependent. I have actually heard of using concrete nails and hacksaw blades but they are so brittle, they would definitely have to receive the ol' tempered treatment to make them a little less so. I understand that old sawzall blades make excellent tooling as well and are good for creating cutoff tools for use at the wood lathe, their temper wards off heat really well, that would be brought on by cutting off burly woods and the like.

The micro-tooling I am wanting to make however would not be used at the lathe. I am wanting to make a large batch of various hand carving toolin this go round.

Its just that I do not have time to execute experimenting on a vast array of various metals and procedures, thus the reason for the questions.
 

Mark Gottesman

New User
Mark
Ok to say I am a bit overwhelmed with GREAT responses and information, would be an understatement. Wowsers! I never knew such a post would draw such high interest. Very good though. Lots of great information. I cannot for time constraints this morning respond to all of you, although I would love to. I am gleaning from all however, please know this.

I do have a question for Gottesman. <When you spoke about testing with the file> if I were to test with a file and the file would no longer cut, I would have surpassed the stage conducive to sharpening.YES, you would be at a glassy hard state. It could be sharpened with an abrasive but edge retention and ability to flex would be reduced due to brittleness. I need the tooling to be hardened to an extent but not so much that I could not resharpen. After the tooling has been cooled down and cellular rearrangement has taken place, it will again regain its nature to be attracted to magnets just as strong as before or stronger? To go from glassy to useable, you need to temper it via low slow heating so that it will be hard enough to hold a suitable edge without chipping or bending. So, yes it will be back to it's original magnet attracting self. It is a balancing act with Harder = increased brittleness and Softer = tougher.

I have tempered some tooling in the past with propane and old motor oil quenching and have been pleased with the results. Most all of those tools however were created from screwdrivers whereby I needed a special shaped cut on the ends for blind cutting. I totally understand all of the various compositions of steel on the market and am certain screwdrivers are composed of a fairly decent type, dependent. I have actually heard of using concrete nails and hacksaw blades but they are so brittle, they would definitely have to receive the ol' tempered treatment to make them a little less so. I understand that old sawzall blades make excellent tooling as well and are good for creating cutoff tools for use at the wood lathe, their temper wards off heat really well, that would be brought on by cutting off burly woods and the like.Two things re: Sawsall blades. (1.) make sure they are the same metal throughout as some have just a hard metal edge on the teeth. (2.) The solid steel ones seem to be some variety of HSS (High Speed steel) that retains its' hardness at temps that would soften regular carbon steels.


Hope that answers your questions. My advice is to make a few and see how they preform. Adjust your method as needed.

The micro-tooling I am wanting to make however would not be used at the lathe. I am wanting to make a large batch of various hand carving toolin this go round.

Its just that I do not have time to execute experimenting on a vast array of various metals and procedures, thus the reason for the questions.

Link to a fairly well written tutorial http://stickcarving.webs.com/carvingknifetutorial.htm
 

Truefire

New User
Chris
Thanks Mark, great info. I am going to read through the tutorial sometime tonight...I'll check it out then.

Mike Davis, I understand that. The reason I posted the thought concerning brittleness is directly related to experiences with these nails. I have used concrete nails on many occasions as I presume most on this site have. There have been some that I have ran across through the years as I was using, if I recall correctly, that were brittle and snapped when struck with a tangential blow to the nail head. Those of today are inherently different than some of those of the yesteryears i suppose.
 

Mike Davis

Mike
Corporate Member
But you are only carving wood with it not hammering or chipping concrete.

i made several turning tools with concrete nails and they work great.

much more stress there than carving.
 

Truefire

New User
Chris
But you are only carving wood with it not hammering or chipping concrete.

i made several turning tools with concrete nails and they work great.

much more stress there than carving.

Yeah, I'm going to use some of those and see what kind of profiles I can come up with.
 
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