Axe making

[Sheffield Tony]

I can't remember if I've posted this link on here before ... anyway, RichardT's plane blade hardening brought it to mind. Now, according to the packet, O1 tool steel is hardened by heating to red heat and quenching in oil, then re-heating to the correct temperature or until the right oxide colour is achieved for the desired hardness (Wikipedia has a table here), then cooling again. The oven works well for this second heating.

However ... many blacksmiths won't do it like that. I was shown the alternative method whilst making turning gouges at Wimpole a couple of weekends ago Better seen here, used by Lars Enander - was smith with Gransfors, now Wetterlings, in making a carpenter's axe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZAERTpoztc

In case you didn't catch it, what he does its to heat the piece to red heat, then quench just the cutting edge to harden it. The piece is then left, so that the residual heat in the bulk of the steel re-heats the cutting edge by conduction. When the edge is the right colour - you can just make out the dark straw colour that he is looking for - the head is quenched again, leaving a hardened cutting edge on an otherwise more malleable head.

Even if you are not really interested in blacksmithing, do keep watching for the change of direction about half way through ....

 

[rileytoolworks]

Excellent video. Thanks for posting.
I'm going to try that next time I heat treat.
Thank you.
Adam

 

[heimlaga]

I think it takes a master blacksmith like Lars to do that sucsessfully.

When a less skilled person (like me for instance) tries to temper with the heat from the back one usually ends up with a softer temper further back in the steel. For a rock drill or a crowbar or a digging bar this is correct but in an axe you want the same temper throughout the inlaid steel in the edge. This because the edge moves inward in the steel every time you grind it and you want the same edge retention throughout the life of the axe until you reach the inner edge of the inlaid steel piece and there is only soft iron left. Then it is time to have a new piece of steel inlaid and forged to shape and hardened to give the axe yet another life.

 

[thick_mike]

Great video, thanks for sharing that.

 

[AndyT]

Thanks for that Tony.
Anyone who enjoys watching a well-swung axe will also enjoy this one, recently mentioned on the Old Tools List. It shows how to make wooden shovels using axe, adze, drawknife and knife.

http://www.folkstreams.net/film,299

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I think it takes a master blacksmith like Lars to do that sucsessfully.

One of the odd things about watchng very skilled people is that they can make things look too easy ! I am sure that the details - like how long the cutting edge is left in the oil on the first quench, and the placing of the head in a warm place on the hood of the forge, matter in getting the most uniform tempering temperature across the cutting edge, For our turning gouges, we forged them from round bar (well, I say "we" - I just turned the blower handle ...). Because only the end was shaped (like a spoon gouge, or a fishtail gouge), it would be necessary to take it back to the forge to re-shape it after a few re-grindings anyway, so having a uniform hardness is not so important.

I like the shovel maker. I hope I will still have his strength at 87 ! There are some other good videos on that site too, I'm not so sure about the talk of "The last shovel maker" - I saw another video of "The last rake maker" too. It sounds good, but it is far from true. To quote John Seymour,

"There is not a human skill that was ever developed that is not still practiced somewhere on this planet."

There are plenty of people can still make rakes, and probably shovels. There just isn't a sufficient market left for there to be professional ones. And when you compare the scenes of metal shovel stamping with the beautiful hand crafting, you can see why.

 

[AndyT]

Well said, Tony. There is a level of skill where - because there is no superfluous action - things look easier than they are. I think a lot of it comes down to practice / repetition. None of us making tiny numbers of things as a hobby will ever be as skilled as someone making hundreds every week.
Even the crew minding the stamping machines for the metal shovels were skilled - like dancers, keeping the exact right rhythm all day, with the constant risk of colliding with a lump of red hot steel.