built all mine out if automobile coil springs there good yeah

Have done that to Red

when I am working with my pritchels, punching holes i shoes, I use gorilla grease to cool it down between holes. works great.

Yep you gave a good set of basic adivsements in the Nov 'Journal:D

Jason Maki wrote:
I like Jason use stainless rod to fix the handles to my forpunches. Works great!!

Stainless for me too.

Jaye Perry wrote:
Thank you for the kind words

Heat treatment is the controlled heating and cooling of a metal in order to change its properties.

A smith or hot farrier uses the following heat treatments: forging; annealing and/or normalizing; hardening; tempering. When forging a hot pritchel, a 4.5" to 5" taper seems to work best. For a cold pritchel, normally used for removing burrs on the foot surface to coarsen the nail hole, the taper can be shorter. Cold pritchels can be made of 5/8" round W1 drill rod. It is plain carbon steel of about 1% carbon and comes in 3 foot lengths. I order mine from Travers Tool. Older auto coil springs are OK. Many of them are of 5160 silicon-manganese steel of about 0.60% carbon; ie., 60/100 of 1%. W1 is water hardening steel at a medium cherry red, but on thin sections like a pritchel, oil can be used. 5160 is oil hardening at a bright cherry red. After hardening, both of these steels can be tempered to a full blue (563ºF) at the business end. You "chase color" by first removing all scale with an abrasive on one tapered flat and heating the thick part of the taper. Colors will run on the scale free surface in bands toward the tip, first straw (430ºF), then dark straw, copper, red, purple, full blue, pale blue. When full blue (560ºF) hits the tip, quench to "hold the temper."

For hot work pritchels, one needs to know what the steel is. For most small shops and for farriers, the common ones are the alloy tool steels: H13, S1, and S7. These must be purchased from a specialty tool & die sales firm. Your everyday mild steel supplier will not have a clue. Alloy tool steels are most often sold in 12 foot lengths, and they are scale free when purchased. They are sold annealed. They will not have the mill scale that is found on mild steel.

S7 is kind of a booger to handle, but I will offer some information on H13. Tool steel is delivered annealed; ie., relatively soft at room temperature. It is best to keep this annealed condition on the striking head of the pritchel. Therefore, the following information is concerning the heat treatment of the tapered business end of the pritchel.
H13
FORGE beginning 1950-2150ºF (lemon or yellow heat). Stop at 1650ºF (bright red, above cherry red, sometimes called "salmon"). This is a limited forging range. Do not hit at the cherry reds or blood reds.
ANNEAL 1500-1550 (full red just above cherry reds). ideally, one is supposed to lose max 40ºF per hour with slow cooling. This is difficult without an oven and pyrometer control. It helps to wrap/encolse the pritchel in s**** mild steel and bury the package in lime, wood ashes, or vermiculite, so that it promotes slow cooling. The three materials mentioned are good insulators. Annealing is desirable, because it refines and makes uniform the crystalline (grain) structure of the metal, resulting in a stronger tool after hardening/tempering.
HARDEN by taking a slow rising heat, a thorough heat, up to 1825-1900ºF and air cooling.
TEMPER at 1000-1200ºF, an incandescent heat (gives off light). This is way above the heat rainbow; the rainbow stops at 630ºF, so we're not concerned with those surface colors with this steel.

Tempering is an oft misunderstood term. It requires the reheating of a tool steel or alloy steel after hardening in order to relieve any possible brittleness and to impart toughness. One hardens first to give a known value. It's is as hard as the good Lord is going to let it get. Now when you reheat it to a known temperature, you are "softening" it somewhat, but the tool will be a combination of hardness and resilient toughness.

Think about it. We live in the 'temperate zone' in the U.S. It is neither too hot nor too cold. A tempered tool is neither too hard for end use, nor too soft. It is in between. It is tempered.

http://www.turleyforge.com

Glad to see you on here, Frank. I first attended one of your presentations at the AFA in Denver (1976 I believe) and was impressed with both your metal knowledge and presentation style. I've been to a couple since and have looked longingly at going to your school. Somehow, I thought that I'd have switched from shoeimg to blacksmithing by now, but it hasn't happened yet so no time set aside for blacksmithing school - do you accept 75 year old students?

Jack Evers et al.,

Good to hear. Yes, I was the guy at the Denver AFA way back there in 1977. I'm in my 70's now but continue to operate my smithing school: http://www.turleyforge.com. As I recall, we talked about S1 at the conference.

I say it's never too late to learn some new procedures. It is a little difficult to transition from shoeing to smithing. You're kind of leaving your horse people high and dry.

You must have learned to shoe before the Brits came over and told us we didn't know how to shoe. Kidding! Kidding! [sort of.]

What year did Dave Duckett go over there

smitty88 wrote:
1981, Jackson, Mississippi -- along wit Edward Martin, Alan Calvert, and someone teaming up wih Edward whose name I can't quite remember. Balding, red hair on the sides, I believe from Wales

That was David Gulley - the rest of the story is ---- David's striker (a Welshman) over slept or got lost. Edward stepped up to help David and SHAZAM the roles of smith and striker sort of reversed. David was, and probably still is if not retired, a teaching master and a joy to watch at work.

Bingo, Jack!! Thanks for the name.

Just caught this thread and starting reading all the great information.

I have been reworking my pritchels with the hammer, getting it to a red heat. Then driving it into the ground for years. Just reworked it today and it is currently driven into my front lawn. Ooops.

Just doing what I was taught, seems to work OK, but the end mushrooms easy.