Bradley, H13 gives the best life if best double quenched, but your methodology is perfect. My personal preference is bees wax over pine tar, but, I imagine they do the same job.

Bradley,
Thanks for the write up. Have now saved it for future use.

Mikel

I could use sand instead of coke-ash for quenching h13 right?
I'm not sure, as the sand may suck to much heat to fast,
the thought behind the ash is the finer particals are like a dust
and will alow the hot steel to cool very slow, where as the sand
? may not allow the steal to cool slow enough. but this could be
Splitting heirs or is that hairs.


What type of steel are punches (like you would buy at the hardware store) made from?
Punches are made of h13 as well.
From the Hardware store?
That I am not sure.

I was thinking of one thing that I missed;
my punches are as Kevins (cowboy BC)
http://www.horseshoes.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=3441&stc=1
but when I build new ones I will make the punch that is attached
to the handle 2-3 times longer that way when you use the belt sander
to touch it up the punchs inner side underneth the handle
it will fit over the end roller and reach to the flat bed of the sander.

To better explain this I will go out tomorrow and take a photo of what I mean.

Thanks for the write up. Have now saved it for future use.
I am only glad to be of service

I forgot this one, but for stress releiving, lime works well for slow cooling any material. Just watch your eyes, it very caustic.

Rick Burten wrote:
Mike White is correct Eagle point is owned by Gordon Haight and you can get his tools through The Shoein Shop (Lee Green) in Yucipa CA or Washshoe Valley Farrier Supply In Carson City NV.

The best thing about Gordons punches are that if you know what your doing, you can use then for quite awhile before you need to tune them up, they are a great daily work punch. If you don't know what you are doing, it's still really hard to mess them up. I have been using my current set for over 4 years now, punching a pair of shoes ever other day on average and they are still in great shape.

the was because I am one of the guys that Gordon is teaching at the moment and the plug for his tools was compleatley shameless.

SlowShoe wrote:
According to anvilfire.com cold punches "might" be M2 or A2 and cold chisles "might" be 5160 or 1095.

Ron Oldenbeuving wrote:
I have an old ice chest full of vermiculite with a little ash thrown in. I heat up some s****s and throw them in first just to get some heat in the box. A small pice of work put in a big, cold box can still cool pretty fast.

I think it's hard to get anything that really approaches anealing without a way to control the cooling rate. In most cases we're probably doing little more than normalizing...which is probably good enough for stress relieving.

something else that I do that seems to cool just about as slow as my "anealing box" is to heat my gas forge, throw the work in, let it heat and shut down the forge and close the doors. The forge seems to cool about as slow or slower than the box of vermiculite.

ok, still not very precise but welcome to the world of garage shop heat treating. LOL

One of our favourite tricks when I was toolmaking, was to take a worn out 12" flat bastard file, heat it up cherry red and throw it in the lime. Come back the next day, sand blast the entire file, except for the tang, and it looks like a new one. Put a new handle on it, and give it to an apprentice to use. God, we were merciless .