I will start.... What's the best way to cool/retemper the end of a reworked pritchell?

I'm not sure what you did to "rework" it but retemper would be . . .

First put it into your forge and raise to yellow to bright yellow, never near white.

take it out and quench with compressed air, till black.
Let stand in still air not letting the working end touch anything.

It is now hardened, and will need to be tempered, so it is not brittle.

In your forge raise to a dull red heat, and let stand in still air till cool to the touch.
Repeat, raise to dull red, and let cool in still air not leting the end touch anything.

The pritchel is, hardened and tempered.

Hope that helps.

I've never had to retemper mine because I don't rework it in the forge if I mess it up. I just touch it up with my grinder while periodically cooling it in beeswax. I also use the beeswax while using the pritchel as well.

First you must know what kind of material it is made of>>>

Thank you Bradley and everyone else so far for the info. It's as much for me as it is the rest of the novice farriers reading these threads.
I rarely need to do more to my own than touch them up on the grinder, but students break the tips all the time when they are first starting out so a lot of theirs need to be reforged.
Way back when I was initially taught, we were told when you had to rework the tip (or make one from scratch) then you air cooled it a little while, then watched the color in the tip and as the purple, then the blue band got to the end, you quenched it in oil.
It never seemed to work really well, they seem to come out brittle. So Ive been just totally air cooling them.
Thats why I asked.
Handandhammer, good question. Maybe it IS the differences in amount of carbon in the different brands of pritchells.
Students usually have cheap 'Diamonds'.
I have mostly Bloom Forge's.

Never ever use a grinder on your pritchel. A pritchel is a tool best tuned by a hammer(of coarse you will have to have the basic hand, eye and hammer control that you should have learned in pre school). You also have to Know what the pritchel is made of. S-7 and H-13 are probably the most poular today. Both air cooled tool steels. Heat to a cherry heat and air quench. Give it a try and you may have to do it again. If it is hot where you are air quenching put the pritchel in front of a fan to cool it quicker.

clinkercjf wrote:
You are right, never use a grinder on your pritchel.
Use a bench mount belt sander.

Use a hammer to make your pritchel,
but finish it with the belt sander.
Tuning your pritchel with a hammer,
is like tuning your piano with “Johnny Be Good” blaring in the background.

Heat treat it then touch it up with the belt sander again.
You need to work the five faces of the tool.

This is what they should look like:



When I said air quench, you will notice I said compressed air.
You need to cool the steel with a healthy flow of air over the end and cool it as quickly as possible.

Other wise you might as well build the pritchel out of rebar.

Bradley, those look more like punches than pritchels, and if so it is fine to dress your punch with a grinder. If you do dont leave them like you have they should be as smooth as your knife blade, when you leave them like you have (Rough) you increase the surface area of the tool and it takes on heat quicker IMO.

Im with clink never ever touch your pritcell with a grinder. BTW if you upset the end of your pritchell it will not stick on ya IME.

Hi Jason
The center one is a pritchel, and the other two are head stamps.

My pritchels don't stick,
as a matter of fact the shoe usually falls off after I pritchel the nail hole. :cool:

calshoer wrote:
Patty,the best way for you is to invest in an oven,where they come out perfect everytime.When you grind a pritchel you take the temper out.
You also have to becareful how you use it.You can only punch a hole through steel so thick,because when putting a pritchel through to thick of steel,it takes the temper out quickly."Breckenridge" Pritchels are oven treated and made to just grind down...................Maybe you should invest in Breckenridge" pritchels..........

I was at a Danny Ward clinic and we made some punches. We were working in an arena. He drove the punch right into the arena surface and said "don't touch it for a while" in his Mr. Ward way.

horseshoeguy wrote:
That is the way I was shown how to do it in school,
the way all of them were shown,
even the world-class competition Farriers that came out of that school.

So, I go to these competitions and watch them compete.
In a weekend I will see each of them twice maybe three times,
maybe four, tuning up their pritchels with their hammer because they are mushrooming.

Their equipment is soft, annealed, not a cutting tool, because they treated the tool poorly.
They did not harden and then temper it.
They stuck it in the sand or ash bucket and annealed it.

Do Not listen to "Old Wifes Tails" or "Old Farrier Tails"

"My Daddy and Grandpapy Punched near-in-on 2 million shoe like dat,
and if'n it was good'nuf for them it's shore good'nuf fo me"

Yea well they coulda, woulda, shoulda, had it easyer than it was, punching nail holes.

IM-educated-O

The correct heat treating depends on the steel used also. I make some punches out of truck spring (1060 or there-abouts). It isn't the best steel for hot tools but I have it so I use it. I oil quench above non-magnetic and temper in an oven. When I use them, I use water to cool them in addition to using a lubricant.

Do you need to use compressed air to quench S7 or h13 in a section as small as a pritchel?

Mike Ferrara wrote:
Yes.
Even when you quench other steels in water or oil,
you swissh it around or you just get the quench turning to gas
around the immediate surrounding area,
and quenching doesn't happen so quickly.
Compressed air offers fresh quenching temp. continuously, until the job is done.

Of all the pritchels that I have seen used, (not new, but reworked)
I really haven't seen any that hold up as well as mine do,
unless of course they were treated the same.

I would say the quicker you get rid of the heat, the better the hardness.

Its just science.

I have used 50 ton punch presses that punch holes in cold steel,
as large as 1-1/2 inches through 1/2" and as small as 1/8 inch through 3/16" material.
You can bet they are as exacting, with their heat treating, as it gets.

In these cases they are not using H13.
H13, just happens to be the best steel to use for the job at hand for us and just happens to be air Quenched

Its just science.

Bradley-1stChoice wrote:
Bradly,never in my life have i ever seen a pritchel like yours,but i will say this,if thats the way you do all your pritchels,one like yours would be hard to hurt~