Need advice please

[Bart]

Hello all! I'm hoping to get some insight from the forum. I recently acquired some tines from an old horse drawn dump-rake. I have heard that this type of spring steel could be forged, quenched and tempered to a very sharp and durable knife blade or tool? I think the House brothers are known to use old rake tines to forge knives from. Has anyone had experience with this type of steel, and what is a good process to follow in getting started. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bart

[Nordnecker]

Can you cut it with a hacksaw? Do a spark test on it. Some rake tines are air hardening. I saw a guy at a blacksmith demo make a pair of tongs out of hay rake tines once. He just let them cool in the air. After they cooled he put them in a vise and bet them 90 degrees. They sprang back to their former straitness no problem.
I made a turnscrew out of one just a few weeks ago.

[rich pierce]

Very old agricultural spring steel is often around 1075 to 1080. You can look up heat treating 1080 and be good to go. My bet is that the average blacksmith recycling this back in the day heated it orange-ish, quenched in water, and tempered by color appropriately for the intended use with serviceable results. But, informed,  temperature controlled approaches will give better results for most applications.

[rich pierce]

Widely used and mostly accurate. Cold rolled steel is obviously not 1070 though.

[J. Talbert]

I'm not a knife maker, but a friend has made a number of knives from hay rake tines.  I use one as patch knife that is quite serviceable.

Jeff

[Greg Pennell]

Nice to have chart, thanks for posting that Rich!  I have several plowshares in my junk pile, it’s good to see they land in the 1080 range. Hay rake times and such are fairly rare here in the mountains...not much ground suitable for hay.

Greg

[Bart]

The tines do cut with a good hacksaw blade, but not easily. Spark test done and they shower sparks! when ground. I'm guessing 1080 or 1095?

[rsherman]

Bart, i forged a batch of patch knives from a source of dump rake tines. Oil quenched them and tempered them like modern spring steel, razor sharp, they turned out fine. I got tines from a different source and worked them the same as the first batch, sharpenend them to hair cutting sharp. Grabbed them a couple days later to take to a shoot to sell,
Upon testing them again before i left, i found the very fine edge had fractured, or crumbled along the length of the edge, nothing dramatic to the eye but you could feel the defective edge. Just make a test piece to try the material before getting to much time into making more than one or two to try out.

[rsherman]

My current patch knife was made back in the mid nineties. It has cut thousands of patches, gutted alot of deer and served many uses. It holds a good sharp edge. I forged it from a dump rake time, oil quenched, and tempered to just into the purple range. But, as they say results may vary...

[jcmcclure]

I got a pile of hayrake tines, literally a pile, for 40 bucks. Ive got enough hayrake material for hundreds of small bag and patch knives.

The spring steel in this batch of rakes is much closer to 1095 rather than the 1084 I commonly buy and use. They make great knives and the hold razor edges. However as was mentioned I have seen them microcrack along the edges. I have found that a normalization cycle done three times will take care if the issue.

[rsherman]

Thanks for the information jcmclure, i anneal them in wood ash once, so will try that in the future. Thanks again.

[jcmcclure]

Thanks for the information jcmclure, i anneal them in wood ash once, so will try that in the future. Thanks again.

Just make sure you are normalizing after your forge work is completed. Here is a good little video from an experienced smith who does straight razors. It explains an amazing process.