Thread: My first forge/ attempt at making a razor

No. They are to low in carbon content. Even the ones stamped with a "HC" ( high carbon).
Everything is relative.

Originally Posted by Swerve

thanks guys this helps a lot. also could a man use a railroad spike for a razor?

ok thanks. is there anything wrong with using a piece of track for anvil?

One word: NO

I work for the railroad, steel is super soft, not even good for knives.

Track on the otherhand, works great for an anvil...ask me how I know...

I took this myth down to the ground back in the mid 80's and killed it. It keeps it's little zombie head moving once in a while. The American Railroad Engineering (AREA) specifications for track spikes are 1030 steel. Pretty much industry standards. Maximum hardness untempered is Rc 45. You could edge that (you can put an edge on mild steel too,) but it will not be a shaver anyone here would enjoy for very long.

Track spikes are good forging practice but they are not good for knives or cutting edges. There are conditions that will improve them like carburizing or welding a high carbon steel tooth in there, but why, when you can buy perfectly good steel in a non spike shape?

Very cool, can you please describe what the various items in the pic do? Looks like a small motor on the bottom? What will the shape be straight out of the forge? a bar or rod or? Thanks, impressive.

basically the rim is my fire pot. the bottom of the t is an ash trap and coming out of the side of the t is a pipe where I mount a hair dryer for the place of a blower. annother question I have is will morter work for lining? and I keep wood over the top of it when its running. also I have 6 baseball size pieces of coake that I use inside of the pot

Originally Posted by Swerve

thanks guys this helps a lot. also could a man use a railroad spike for a razor?

Are railroad spikes made from steel that has enough carbon content?
You can try to harden it and spark test. Even then, turning a railroad spike into a flat bar is a significant task. Starting off with an old file would be a much more convenient starting point. And you can get them at any garage sale or flea market, for peanuts.

I don't have any old files on hand and I don't get too much time to go shopping with the 3 kids I'm raising by myself. Is there any other ideas you All might have 4 what else to use that's handy? And I'm a little hazy on the steps especially if it lasts for over a day. For ex: soak hammer soak hammer soak hammer then ?quench? SoAk hammer soak hammer ?quench repeat till done with smithing? Then temper? And to what color? Then slowly grind keeping cool? Then scales and finaly hone?

No that's not quite it.
If you don't have an old file on hand, just buy a piece of O1 online. It's dirt cheap and at least you'll know what you are working with is good steel.

Then you heat to bright yellow / orange and hammer. The steel will cool down and you'll re-heat and hammer again.
At this stage, don't keep hammering when the steel has dropped below red.

When your piece is finally approximately the way you want, you'll do the final shaping and straitening. You do this at temperatures that are no higher than 'red' and you can keep hammering even when it is no longer glowing. Straightening a piece is not that hard, but you'll want to do it at lower temps because otherwise the steel will still flop around like a noodle, and you don't want that.

Then you need to do the rough grinding so that the piece looks more or less what you had in mind. Leave the edge thick enough because otherwise your piece will warp during quench.

When you are happy with how it looks, heat it to the point where it is non magnetic and even colored. Then you quench in vegetable oil. You have only a couple of seconds between pulling it out of the fire and quenching. At that point you'll want to temper it for an hour at the right temperature for the desired hardness (you'll find the tables on the internet).

Then it is time to do the final grinding. when you do that, you should get a shower of sparks from any point on the cutting edge. If you don't, then the heat treatment failed and you'll have to redo it.

thanks for all the helpfull info