Steel for shop made chisels?

[SingleMalt]

I've been reading with a great deal of interest Curtis' thread about building a Christian's Spring rifle.  In his last installment, he used a shop made chisel for cutting incised carving.

My question is, what steel is suitable for making chisels?  Off of the top of my head, I can think of O1, W1, 1095, "piano wire," 1018, and 4140. I have no idea... 

Thanks for the help!

[flehto]

I made my chisels from 01....easy to heat treat and they take a fine edge......Fred

[Stan]

I prefer 1095 for chisels, but other metals may be fine.

[P.W.Berkuta]

Good high carbon steel -- I use O-1, 1084, and sometimes 1075 but not too often. I don't have any 1095 so I can't say anything about it. 1084 is very easy to harden & temper - O-1 can be a bit fustrating in thin sections to heat treat ( overheating, brittle, corse grain can lead to edge chipping). Give them a try and see what works for you.

[tiswell]

O-1 has worked well for me for chisels and knives. I would like to try some A-2 for chisels, I have read it is more difficult to get razor sharp but keeps its edge longer.

[L. Akers]

I've used O1, W1, 1095 with good results.  1018 is low carbon steel an won't work for chisels.

[Whaleman]

I have made some very small ones from old yard sale Stanley chisels. Just out of curiosity what steel is that most likely? Dan

[JCKelly]

A2 will give a longer lasting edge than will 1095, O1 or W1
D2 is THE most wear resistant steel that might be used in a good home shop.
Everyone who has an o-l-d American made Nicholson file has a nice fine-grained piece of

1095 right in his hand. If you can grind it to shape, keeping it cool, that will give the best results. Well, assuming you temper it some, say to a straw color.

Information on available flat tool steel is on

http://www.pasteel.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/Binder1.pdf

Forging the tool to shape does two things.
First of all, it makes one feel like a true old-fashioned craftsman, forming the steel to his will. Very traditional.
Second it coarsens the grain & quite ruins the properties. UNLESS you anneal or normalize it at more or less correct temperatures, to rifine the grain.

While looking up the properties of some tool steels I found that much of what is written by Chisel Experts of various sorts is as pure as B.S. can get. It is your basic dark-of-the-moon quench-it-in-an-Ethiope-of-fair-frame stuff, laced with misunderstood 18th century steel stuff.

[SingleMalt]

Thanks for the replies. I went to McMaster-Carr's site and ordered W1. I'll let you know how it works out.

[Curtis]

Just saw your post Singlemalt.  For All the above answers are good ones, especially if you have a tool in mind when you acquire the materials and order exactly what you need.  I just wanted to mention that I have made a number of inletting chisels from small screwdrivers or similar tools.  I also keep my eyes open at flea markets and antique shops for economically priced old chisels that can be ground and re-purposed.  Often they are very good steel, and if you are lucky they already have a handle!

Curtis

[WKevinD]

I've made a few stabbing chisels and small inletting chisels with discarded fencing foil blades. I have no idea what kind of steel it is but it takes and holds a nice edge after shaping and tempering. The blades also make a nice scraper.
Kevin

[rickw]

I've made some very small carving tools out of piano wire. On some of them, I shaped them carefully, keeping them cool enough so as to not draw the temper. On others, I hardened and tempered them with a propane torch.
I made a 1/16" gouge, and some straight and dog-leg chisels.They all work well.
Rick W

[Eric Krewson]

I have made a pile of scrapers and chisels out of concrete nails, these are crude, specialized tools that don't see a lot of use but come mighty handy for just the right job.

[JCKelly]

I wish to apologize for the impolite manner of writing my last post. While I stand by the technical portions, I just was not very gracious.

Piano wire is the strongest piece of metal that you and I can buy. Nothing special about the chemistry, save for high carbon, but it is processed in a manner that gives extremely high strength. Been around a couple hundred years, still nothing so strong is on the consumer market.

Yes, I'd use it for small chisels, carefully ground so no to draw the temper.

One may anneal & reheat treat it, when it will be OK but nothing like so good as it was when bought.

[mark esterly]

don't over look worn out hex keys for making usable chisels.  allen brand are S2 steel and eklind hex keys are 8650 chrome nickle.   

[okieboy]

 JCKelly, your post seems polite enough to me, there are lots of people who offer ignorance as being certified truth, and it is good for us to remember that and be cautious consumers of information.

"Yes, I'd use it for small chisels, carefully ground so no to draw the temper."
 Did you mean reduce the hardness?

 

[Chowmi]

I have an old wooden tool box from my grandfather full of beat up old wood chisels.  Even if they were brand new, they are totally unsuited to gun building, much too large. 

I have often thought of making various tools out of them.  Part of me hates to "destroy" a tool my grandfather used.  The other part of me thinks they will just rust and rot if I don't do something with them, and who knows, he might have wished that they got a new life. 

Still pondering. 

Cheers,
Norm

[JCKelly]

Okieboy, I mean don't get that music wire hot enough to form any color at all.
Now, strictly speaking with music wire I'm not sure that "draw the temper" is the correct metallurgical term.

Anyway if you get it hot it will become softer, which is bad for a chisel

Don't know the Rockwell C hardness of music wire as-is, could find out, but mainly the stuff is tough as well as hard, meaning it is less likely to snap when used/abused.

This wire is "Patented", which means it is made by a process that was indeed patented a couple centuries back. It involves some combination of drawing through dies which make it smaller, and stronger from the cold work, and heat treating in a molten lead bath. I do not recall the details, such as exact temperature. My only involvement with music wire has been: 1. buying music wire since teen years for various nefarious purposes 2. Discussing alloys to be used in that molten lead tank, when I worked for a supplier of high temperature alloys.

[Dphariss]

Use O-1. Its designed for wear resistance.
You can heat treat like 1070-1090 for small parts.

Dan

[T*O*F]

Use O-1. Its designed for wear resistance.
You can heat treat like 1070-1090 for small parts.

We were talking to Dru Hedgecock while buying a set of his chisels.  They are made from 01 steel.  He told us if we ever needed to redo them to heat them to red and quench.   Then hold a flame 3" from the tip and let the colors crawl toward it.  When the tip hit straw, quench again and they would be ready to go.

[Elnathan]

I've used O-1, piano/music wire, a masonry nail, and a piece of exacto knife. All worked pretty well.

Wick Ellerby has been an advocate for simple carbon steels over O-1 for forging for some time. I can't report from experience, since I have just now started forging with 1084 and 1095, but I can say that O-1 is definitely finicky about annealing and following best practices for heat treating O-1 (which requires a soak of 20 minutes or so) is difficult at best with primitive equipment. OTOH, O-1 is easily available in drill rod form and even if the heat treat isn't precise enough to wring maximum efficiency out of the steel it still makes a good tool.

Normalizing prior to hardening should be normal operating procedure when heat treating a forged piece. Might not be a bad idea even when using stock removal, as I've had both 1084 and O-1 bars warp and even (once) crack on me when heat treating before.

[Scota4570]

Old files.

[boman]

I've used 1095 with good results. too avoid warpage I just heat the lower one third or so to red, quench draw to straw. all with oxy/acetylene torch

Steve

[Dphariss]

O1 can be harder to forge and will tend to break at the "cold line", I still like it.  The advantage to the tool steels is they are made, designed if you will, for cutting tools. They can be obtained in a variety of sizes in round rectangle or square in an annealed condition that makes filing them easy. While if I am desperate I will used odd pieces of carbon steel for springs and such. I have a tiny gouge I made from round needle file decades ago... I have made round gravers and other things from piano wire, files etc etc.

Dan

[JCKelly]

Kind of a PS. After quite some years as a metallurgist, I gotta say that how well something works has at least as much, or more, to do with DESIGN and how the person uses it.
"Design" here includes the angles on the tool and how well one sharpens it (I am lousy here).

As far as edge holding, high carbon is nice, high carbon with some chromium and a touch of vanadium is nicer.

Appropriate angles & sharpening are even nicer.