Home Made Tools

[RiverWalker]

So this is somewhat way beyond where I am at, but its something I have interest in eventually getting into... home made tools.

I've seen on another site, a suggestion that it would be possible to make your own plane blades, ones particularly for home made planes, that would do perfectly fine without a capiron.
their suggestion was something to the effect of that you get a certain kind of steel in the width you want, and a quarter inch thick. you cut off a length as long as you want the plane blade to be, heat it to red hot or where it loses magnetism or whatever, quench it, grind it, heat it to straw yellow and leave it to cool, file and sharpen it and you're good to go.

now, that sounds crazy thick to me, but the idea they said was that a large part of what the capiron does is make a thin, cheap light blade act like a heavier blade, and that simply by making it actually heavier, it removes much of the need for a capiron.

now, one of the books I have, the author sounds like he regards capirons to be the best thing since beer, or something. so to see some people apparently regard them as more trouble than they are worth, is confusing.

so any thoughts on that sort of thing? or other home made tools that you've heard of or made yourself?

[TDHofstetter]

RW, you don't know this about me yet... but makin' hardened (or unhardened) tools is kinda' routine in my shop. It sounds like you've got a good handle on a lot of the process, including that tidbit about the loss of magnetism at the "magic point" where the carbon is fully dissolved in the iron & will harden once quenched.

Couple thoughts, though.

First, if ya use high-carbon W1 or O1 steel, ya do all the grinding either in the fully annealed state (to shape the bevel) or after the tempering stage (to sharpen the edge), never ever ever ever in the full-hard-not-yet-tempered stage. Ya don't do anything in the full-hard stage except handle that iron like glass... because it's deadly brittle and will shatter if you bump it with anything less than a perfectly dressed wheel, and THEN only very gently. The impact of any roughness in the stone can break that iron into shards.

Oh, and you won't be able to file it with anything less than diamond files unless it's still fully annealed & dead soft. In the hardened or tempered stage, it'll just wreck a good file.

Next thought... In most cases it's most cost-effective to use a thin plane iron and a cap iron for planes. Ya see... tool steel isn't cheap - it tends to run really pretty expensive. For iron planes, it also gets complicated by any penetrations or other features necessary for the adjusting mechanisms.

For shopmade wooden planes, though... yep, a large heavy iron can be a blessing; capirons for wooden planes are difficult to implement. Hock makes nice ones - they're set up to do that sort of work in large quantity, and can probably do it cheaper than we can. Fella can DO it, certainly.

Shopmade hardened tooling is really best done in the case of special tooling that's not available (or is ludicrously expensive) on the market. Say... a special shape form tool, or an experimental hollowing tool, or an around-the-corner carving gouge.

[sawduster]

I've made a couple or three wooden planes in my shop. For the flat cutting ones there used to be a fella at another forum who made plane irons in a variety of sizes, all of them ~ 1/4" thick. Definitely a hefty, sturdy blade that needed no cap iron.

Anyway, in my chasing down of old hand tools via e-bay and such, I managed to pick up a few lemons, but the blade steel all went into a box in the shop. I used some of this stuff for the cutters on specialty planes I've made. Being "specialty" planes generally means they don't get a lot of regular use, so the steel doesn't have to be the very best.

Like Tim said, hardening and tempering are not rocket science, but if you're working annealed steel, a blade of any significant size, and especially thickness, is gonna require some pretty hefty heat source to get the whole thing heated up at the same time. Fella who was making those blades I mentioned above had a home made kiln that was pretty elaborate and took quite some effort to make.

Don't wanna chase you off of this idea, but don't think you're gonna save any money with DIY plane irons.

[TDHofstetter]

Just for reference... a stick of 1/4" x 2" O1 ground flat 18" long costs about $40 plus shipping...

[RiverWalker]

thats awesome tim.

so heated and quenched is hardened, heated and slow cooled is annealed, right? so you heat it, slow-cool it(anneal), grind, heat, quench(harden), then heat to a specific much lower temperature/range and then quench it(temper). right?

cost-wise... yeah, I dunno. some of the high end plane blades I've seen online that use capirons seem pretty expensive. I'll cross that bridge when I eventually come to it. but 60 bucks or whatever for the metal and shipping, to make 3 blades? seems like it might not be so bad compared to the $40-100+ I've seen for some of the fancy pantsy blades. of course thats not counting the grinder, files, ect.
then again theres also some of the cheapo blades available for <10 bucks a pop...

as far as heating goes, one book I have here suggests that at least for some things, a gas torch (one of those portable ones, not a welding torch or anything) can do the job, and suggests using an oven for the tempering. but for a 1/4" thick piece maybe one of those torches wouldn't do it.
I saw a plan once for making a small knife out of a leaf spring, and they had an idea of a little forge made from a few firebricks to focus the heat from a couple of those portable torches.

lol, eventually I'll get to play with some of that stuff.

[tw]

Am I allowed to post here?........I know that I am creating a never ending path of scrounging and toolmaking for poor Riverwalker ;D

worldofwood.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tools&action=display&thread=1877

worldofwood.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tools&action=display&thread=1475

[TDHofstetter]

Torlief... you're ALWAYS allowed to post! Ya got some great stuff to talk about!

RW... Yep, heat to "magic", then cool slowly to anneal to dead soft. Work, shape, file, everything but final sharpening, then heat to "magic" and quench (oil for O1 steel, water for W1 steel) to harden, then heat gently to about a straw color (it goes FAST, and it goes too far TOO fast, so watch it unless you use an oven!) and cool slowly to temper.

Tempering takes out a small amount of the hardening by precipitating a little of the ferric carbide (carbon dissolved in iron) and permitting the molecules to arrange themselves in an orderly fashion, besides relieving internal stresses. In doing so, it adds a LOT of toughness (glass is "hard", taffy is "tough"). A full-hard plane iron will chip readily, a toughened-by-tempering one won't.

Annealing precipitates ALL the carbon out of the ferric carbide, leaving pure iron filled with tiny individual crystals of atomic carbon floating in it. That makes the steel as tough as it gets, and as soft (compare to "hard") as it gets, so it's workable.

A quite ordinary cheap propane torch, as is used by a plumber, will definitely do the job for most annealing/hardening/tempering until you get up to really pretty large pieces. I don't think I'd harden 1/2" x 4" stock with one, but I'd dangwell try anything up to that size. Worst case, you wouldn't be able to get it up to "magic" and it'd stay annealed so you'd try something bigger... like a slightly different kind of torch (BernzoMatic makes one) that uses MAPP gas instead of propane. THAT will harden 3/4"x6" steel, I've got very little question.

Do remember... you don't have to harden the whole thing. In fact, it's best NOT to... because dead-soft steel is tougher and less likely to vibrate & chatter, and will take fierce abuse. For the first job, only about the last 1/16" needs to be hardened... 1" back from the edge will give you years of sharpening before you've ground all the way back to soft steel again. A good sharpening isn't likely to remove much more than one thousandth of an inch of steel from the edge...

[sawduster]

If you're buying your steel, you want it to be annealed. Annealed is the "soft" workable state of carbon steel. You want to do all of your grinding, cutting and shaping while the steel is in the annealed state. Once you have done your machining to the steel, you need to harden it. This is done, with W1 or O1, by heating the entire piece to cherry red and where a magnet won't stick to it, then quenching in water for W1, or oil for O1. You want to dip it into the quenching medium straight down with the blade perpendicular to the level of the medium so as not to splash the medium. Once it is submerged, you want to jiggle it around so as to stir up the medium.

Once the steel has cooled enough to hold, you want to clean the slag and discoloration from the steel and try to bring it to a little silvery shine. This is so that you can discern color changes during the tempering process. Again you heat the steel watching as the color changes and when it gets to the wheat color you mentioned, you again quench it in the proper quenching medium.

I have re-tempered a number of vintage chisel blades, mostly working only the first 1/2" of the blade or so that had been overheated by some overly zealous owner trying to sharpen it in the past, and even have had success properly tempering some modern chisels that were a little lacking in QC during tempering. I've mostly used a MAPP gas torch but have had to resort to a Oxy-Propane torch I have on a couple of occasions. I don't know how successful you will be trying to heat a plane blade sized 1/4" thick piece of steel with less than Oxy-Propane and don't know if that would even be enough. The fella at the other forum had a shop made kiln that he used to work the bigger blades he sold.

[RiverWalker]

May 22, 2010 12:40:03 GMT -6 tw said:

Am I allowed to post here?........I know that I am creating a never ending path of scrounging and toolmaking for poor Riverwalker ;D

worldofwood.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tools&action=display&thread=1877

worldofwood.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tools&action=display&thread=1475

lol, thanks! at least my ambitions to some extent are not entirely unheard of. the idea of being able to make many of the tools myself is something I really like the idea of.

the whole hardening and tempering thing seems much less difficult than I think most people assume, for being such a critical portion of the process. its definitely encouraging to the idea of possibly being able to do some of that stuff possibly this side of "maybe some day".

[sawduster]

Timmer,
Everything I've read says to quench the steel when tempering once it reaches the straw color. That's how I've always done it and been pretty successful. Don't know that it matters except that quenching stops the heating, which if you don't quench, it might get past the temper you're striving for.

[TDHofstetter]

Ya know... you're absolutely right. Did it today (about an hour ago), and as I did it I remembered (muscle memory's better than verbal memory) how to do it right... I quenched after tempering.

Here's what I was making:



That's a specialty hole saw. It's for coring broken or sawn-off mounting bolts out of the mounting bushings at either end of the leaf springs in a 1972 to 1975 CJ5. Disassembling this chassis for its drivetrain (to swap into the refurbished frame), most of the badly rusted bolts came out. Not these two, though - they couldn't be sweedled out with hammer nor puller nor anything else. With the sawn-off bolts in place, I couldn't use my "bushing pusher" tool (also shopmade) to get the rest of the bushing out of the spring mounting eyes. So... I made this from 3/4" solid drill rod, hollowed at 5/8" (1/16" wall) 2" deep, milled & filed the teeth, then hardened & tempered (with quenching).

I - ahem - could have tempered it a little more, apparently:



That's what happens when steel's too brittle & encounters something rigid.

Fortunately, the tool finished its job - the bolts are completely cored out & the bushings're ready to push.

[dburkhart]

Tim is there anything you cant do

[TDHofstetter]

Yep, there are definitely some things...

Can't visualize organic objects (can't sketch a frog or tell you what my own face looks like). Can't remember names from one minute to the next. Can't get comfortable talking on the telephone. Can't taste complex tastes or hear complex sounds (any polyphonic musical instrument is a serious challenge, and I can't write anything more complex than ballads). Can't make mud (concrete or stucco) stick to a wall. Can't relax & just enjoy BEING. Can't float in fresh water (body density's too high). Can't run a chainsaw nearly as long as most guys (got no carbohydrate reserves).

For examples.

[tw]

;D

I was taught by an old blacksmith (he learned the trade before world war 2) that the best blades must be "compacted" before annealing. This means that the steel is forged with light blows using a small hammer at dark red temperature trying not to change the shape of the blade. This makes the chrysstalline structure of the steel finer and the tool easier to sharpen.
After compacting the blade is annealed. This is done by heating the steel to dark red and letting it cool buried in a pile of coal.

I have some more projects to show but something has changed with picture posting. I have to get a "photo hosting service" it seems.

A few things I have made:
-More planes than those pictured.
-Turning tools.
-Saw handles for old reused saw blades.
-A big crosscut cirkular saw for cutting firewood to lenght. Entirely from scrap.
and a lot more......

Home made tools I own. They are made by others:
-Table saw made entirely from scrap iron.
-Waterstone grinder made from an industrial washing machine.
-Band grinder

I have seen a good functional planer/jointer combination made from an old printing press and a waterstone grinder built from a horse drawn sickle bar mower. Home made lathes are common. Time is the only limit.

[sawduster]

May 22, 2010 16:53:05 GMT -6 TDHofstetter said:

Ya know... you're absolutely right. Did it today (about an hour ago), and as I did it I remembered (muscle memory's better than verbal memory) how to do it right... I quenched after tempering. snip

Man oh man oh man. Gotta declare a holiday. I was actually able to correct something that Timmer said. That has got to be a once in a lifetime happening. ;D

[TDHofstetter]

That's true - it comes down to time.

When I bought my old Foley-Belsaw planer, it had no feedworks. I happened across a large institutional paper shredder, tore it apart, and built my own feedworks for the planer from it. That's been serving me well now for... nearly eight years, if I recall correctly. Maybe more than that.

WOW - I just looked - I did that in 1998. Been TWELVE years now.

I'd sure like to see that big saw...

I've built two static phase converters (now we're talking electric stuff) for running 3-phase machines on single-phase power. I've still got the one powering my milling machine - the other one went with the giant (40"x48" table, 20" blade) table saw I used to own.

[dburkhart]

like i said is there anything you cant do lol

[RiverWalker]

May 23, 2010 13:19:14 GMT -6 tw said:

I have some more projects to show but something has changed with picture posting. I have to get a "photo hosting service" it seems.

A few things I have made:
-More planes than those pictured.
-Turning tools.
-Saw handles for old reused saw blades.
-A big crosscut cirkular saw for cutting firewood to lenght. Entirely from scrap.
and a lot more......

Home made tools I own. They are made by others:
-Table saw made entirely from scrap iron.
-Waterstone grinder made from an industrial washing machine.
-Band grinder

I have seen a good functional planer/jointer combination made from an old printing press and a waterstone grinder built from a horse drawn sickle bar mower. Home made lathes are common. Time is the only limit.

thats awesome, :-) I got a book from the library "Fine Woodworking on Making and Modifying Machines" that talks about making a huge variety of bench machines at home, including a tablesaw and jointer from wood construction, and a "walking beam saw"

my dad built a metal lathe in shop. the better part of it cast(at home) from recycled aluminum cans.

now if my fiancee and I can manage to move back to the same city/area as my parents, I would certainly be able to borrow the thing my dad made for melting the aluminum(it was propane fired) as I remember it, it didn't get hot enough to MELT iron or steel, but I'd bet it could get the cherry red needed for the annealing and hardening.

I also read on a site for making knives and swords and such that doing the annealing process repeatedly would make it even softer, and that(i'm summarizing here) tempering it repeatedly would be beneficial. (drawing the temper?)

all of that sounds really fun to get into eventually.

[dcarter636]

A fellow needs to exercise caution when reheating tool steels in free air, the carbon content has much to do with the strength and hardness of steel; high carbon steel is what cutting tools are made of. Too many, too hot, or too long, heat cycles can burn out enough surface carbon to turn tool steel into junk steel. Hot worked steel was often heated within a pile of charcoal in a forge to preserve and/or increase carbon content of the exposed surfaces. Many hobbyist tool makers still do the charcoal immersion heating process because it is simpler and cheaper than flooding the forge with an inert, or carbon bearing, gas atmosphere like the big boys.

I'm 90% certain that multiple tempering or drawing cycles add no value unless the first tempering cycle was bungled.

[sawduster]

Yeah, Dave, loss of carbon is an oft forgotten/neglected aspect.