How to temper steel for spark/fire-making?

R

Return of the J.D.

Joined
Nov 29, 2005
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One thing I'm interested in knowing how to do is preparing steel (either knife/chakma blades or maybe purpose-built steel strikers) for potential use in flint-and-steel firemaking.

How hard does steel need to be to be good at this? What is the best way to get it to that level of hardness, without excessive brittleness?

I am toying with the idea of making a steel striker, for use with flint, out of a cheap file. Any suggestions/tips?
 
Get an old nicholson file. Grind off the teeth carefully so as not to ruin the heat treat. Put it in your oven at 400 for ~1 hour.

Done.


Edited: Put it in the vice and snap it to length before tempering. After tempering it'll be the color of Bass ale.
 
If you can get some O1 steel, it makes a great striker. If it's thin enough you can heat the steel to cherry red with a propane torch and quench in oil or trans fluid. Temper twice at 400 degrees for an hour and a half letting it cool between tempers. I make these with 3/32" thick O1 with a scandi bevel. I've gotten a 2 foot stream of sparks off a large ferro rod.
Scott

striker.jpg
 
For the old-times way of striking a piece of steel against the sharp edge of a flint, and catching the sparks on charcloth, the steel generally needs to be simple carbon-steel with atleast .75 percent carbon. That`d make 1075 and upwards a good steel to try. Also, it generally needs to be as hard as possible.
What i`d do, was to get as high carbon steel i could get, i`d go for 1095 myself, and quench it, then temper it at 150°C or around 300°F for an hour or so. Then just test the piece, to see if it throws sparks off the flint.

If it`s the newer kinds of ferrocerium sparks we`re talking about, i`d follow the directions of Scott. He knows sparkers it seems. :)
 
Gossman Knives said:
If you can get some O1 steel, it makes a great striker. If it's thin enough you can heat the steel to cherry red with a propane torch and quench in oil or trans fluid. Temper twice at 400 degrees for an hour and a half letting it cool between tempers. I make these with 3/32" thick O1 with a scandi bevel. I've gotten a 2 foot stream of sparks off a large ferro rod.
Scott

striker.jpg
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Scott, I have a few questions: First where do you recommend I get a small quantity of O-1? Second, where did you get you large ferro rod?

Also, can I use an acetylene torch to heat it up? Sounds like a stupid question but I don't want to liquefy my O-1. I am very good with a torch though. And have a propane one as well. I really want to make a set up like yours. I have both trans fluid and oil which do you prefer, or does it matter? Thanks for any info you can share. And sorry for so many questions!! Thanks,
Jeff
 
002-8416231-9344811


12,000 strike model with oak haldle ~17 dollars at Amazon.
 
Jeff, if you like I can send you a small piece. I get my tool steel from toolanddie.com. You can get O1 as thin as 1/16" thick. Any type of torch will work on thin small pieces of steel. I use to use a Mapp gas torch with oxyen. Alot hotter then propane but I have heated smaller pieces of O1 with propane. Trans fluid will work fine. Just make sure it's clean unused. You have to heat the oil to about 120 degrees to quench. The rod I got from Marty Simon. Ron Hood sells these large rods on his website www.survival.com I believe Marty sells them also on his website www.weteachu.com
Scott
 
If you ever need something you can't seem to get, check www.mcmaster-carr.com

They've got everything, including 01 steel. And 1075, and 1095, and 5160, etc.

We use them at work. They've got every odd sized screw known to man.
 
Gossman Knives said:
Jeff, if you like I can send you a small piece. I get my tool steel from toolanddie.com. You can get O1 as thin as 1/16" thick. Any type of torch will work on thin small pieces of steel. I use to use a Mapp gas torch with oxyen. Alot hotter then propane but I have heated smaller pieces of O1 with propane. Trans fluid will work fine. Just make sure it's clean unused. You have to heat the oil to about 120 degrees to quench. The rod I got from Marty Simon. Ron Hood sells these large rods on his website www.survival.com I believe Marty sells them also on his website www.weteachu.com
Scott
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I'm new to this knife-making/quenching/HT thing so when I quench the blade at 120 degrees do I just keep it in there until it is at 120 degrees or until the oil cools off completely to a specific temp? If you have a small amount of O-1 lying around and don't mind I would sure like to try this out. I will insist on paying you for the steel plus shipping. Thanks, Jeff
 
The steel looks cheap. I just checked out the site. I typed in 0-1 and got several choices for flat stock. Which do you get?
 
Just hold it in the oil for a few minutes until the oil settles down. Click onto precision marshall then flat stock. Either onsize or oversize is fine. They sell O1 in 18" and 36" bars.
Scott
 
Thanks, guys--what I have in mind is one of the old-time-piece-of-steel-whacked-with-naturally-occurring-piece-of-flint kind of firemaking, rather than the modern ferrocerium-rod variety (though I like that a lot, and got good at using the ferrocerium stuff decades ago, and have recently taught my little kids to use it for the family's cooking fires, too). My mom gave me a blacksmith-made steel striker that I've used now and then, obviously high-carbon steel. Looks like someone took a half-inch bar of steel, bent it into a U shape, flattened it, and curled the ends. I'm kind of interested in trying to duplicate this, maybe with steel from a cheap file from Harbor Freight or some such, as sort of an entry-level blacksmithing project. If I went that route, would I need to grind off the file teeth before heating and bending the metal? Also, tell me a bit about quenching/tempering for the right hardness for this application--obviously this steel can be quenched to file hardness, but I bet I want something a tad less brittle. Further ideas? Oh--and can I use water, or do I have to use some kind of oil? If oil, do I have to heat the oil first? If so, what does the pre-heating-the-oil do? (You must understand that I am a total novice at this metalworking stuff, but am trying to cure my vast ignorance.)
 
Return of the J.D. said:
Thanks, guys--what I have in mind is one of the old-time-piece-of-steel-whacked-with-naturally-occurring-piece-of-flint kind of firemaking, rather than the modern ferrocerium-rod variety (though I like that a lot, and got good at using the ferrocerium stuff decades ago, and have recently taught my little kids to use it for the family's cooking fires, too). My mom gave me a blacksmith-made steel striker that I've used now and then, obviously high-carbon steel. Looks like someone took a half-inch bar of steel, bent it into a U shape, flattened it, and curled the ends. I'm kind of interested in trying to duplicate this, maybe with steel from a cheap file from Harbor Freight or some such, as sort of an entry-level blacksmithing project. If I went that route, would I need to grind off the file teeth before heating and bending the metal? Also, tell me a bit about quenching/tempering for the right hardness for this application--obviously this steel can be quenched to file hardness, but I bet I want something a tad less brittle. Further ideas? Oh--and can I use water, or do I have to use some kind of oil? If oil, do I have to heat the oil first? If so, what does the pre-heating-the-oil do? (You must understand that I am a total novice at this metalworking stuff, but am trying to cure my vast ignorance.)
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Now you sound worse than me!! LOL:D We are badgering the poor guy and look at his avatar he is hard at work. Kiddin' man. I don't know those files are like 61 RC even if you heat it up it might snap. especially bending it like you say. But I am also a novice. I have a great welding book that has a lot of info in it on metallurgy. I need to consult it. Peace out....:thumbup:


Oh, and Scott thanks for the offer, but I will buy some from the company. I Didn't know you could get small quantities. Thanks again, Jeff
 
I think you could use an old file, but the newer stuff might be what`s called, case hardened. That is when they add some powder of sorts, to the outside of the material, in this case a file, heat it up, then quench it. Only the outside goes hard, and the inside is quite soft. This way they use mild-steel instead of carbon steel. Atleast that`s what i`ve read about online.
But it`s a cheap experiment anyway.

Now, you don`t really have to grind anything off the file, if you want to heat it up to forging temperature. (Forging temperature is like a orangey-red color in the steel, and it needs to be this colour if you want to bend the steel.)
Then you can just beat the steel into shape with a hammer. As an anvil, you can use anything that can stand the temperature of the steel without burning or melting. If you don`t have a real anvil, and want to go a rather primitive way, you could use a piece from an old leafspring, clamped to a piece of wood, or directly to a workbench, or a really big rock. An anvil is really just any flat surface that can stand being in contact with red-hot steel.

Then you just beat the hot steel with a hammer, until you`ve smoothed out most of the teeth. After that, you just beat it into the shape you want, thin it out where you want it thinner, and curl it up.
It really isn`t hard to forge steel, it might take a little practice, but it`s really not hard. Ofcourse, remember that hot steel burns. Even steel that appears to be black, might be hot.

When it`s time to quench it, you can use water or oil. I just use water for everything i do. Mind you, i`m no proper blademaker or blacksmith. I`m just a weird guy who likes to beat on hot steel and make sharp things.
Water ofcourse, doesn`t have the added danger of being flammable.
After heating the steel up to non-magnetic, just dunk it into a bucket of water or oil, depending on what you have at hand. (If you use oil, don`t be scared by the flames.) Then just take it out of the liquid, and wait for it to aircool so that you can handle it.
Check the hardness with a file of some kind. If it "skates" over the steel, and doesn`t "bite" it`s hardened. Then you can temper it in an ordinary kitchen oven, at around 150°Celsius or 300°Fahrenheit. Or perhaps even up to 400°F.
(Just remember to wipe off all the oil if you used oil to quench it, or else it might make alot of smoke.)
If the file "bites" into the steel, the steel didn`t harden, or you might have some of the 'case-hardened' stuff, which isn`t good for making sparks the old fashioned way.

Also, something to think about, is that when steel is too soft, it doesn`t spark when you strike the flint. So it`s better that the steel is hard and brittle, rather than soft and flexible.

Just my two cents anyway.
 
Looks like aarya covered it pretty good. One thing you have to do after the heating, cooling and banging on a piece of steel is normalize it before you heat treat it. Heat it to cherry red and let cool slowly in vermiculite or i think the bladesmiths also use kitty litter. The steel gets stressed out with all that heating and cooling.
Scott
 
Thanks, Scott! I think I've also heard of blacksmiths using ashes as something in which to allow heated steel to cool (I guess the idea is to let it cool more slowly than it would in the open air--the powdery stuff, be it ash or vermiculite or kitty-litter would probably work by insulating the steel from the surrounding air--that about right?) Also, can somebody tell me about this "heated oil for quenching" thing--I've heard more than 2 people recommend using heated oil, usually around 140 degrees Fahrenheit is recommended--but I'm trying to figure out why that is needed. Does cooler oil result in too much of a shock to the steel, making it brittle? Also, any good ideas about how to gauge when the oil is at that temperature--I imagine old-time smiths did it without thermometers, and I'm interested in keeping the technological requirements low, if that's feasible.

Thanks again, guys, for all this input. Keep it coming!
 
J.D. I'm a stock removal maker so my knowledge of forging is limited. You could post some of you forging questions over in the shoptalk forum. There's a wealth of knowledge on bladesmithing over there.
Scott
 
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