Tempering steel for a striker

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lonepine

Joined
May 7, 2010
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I had an idea that I could make a full tang knife and leave a bit of the tang exposed at the end of the handle as is sometimes done to tie a cord to. I want this exposed piece of steel to serve as a steel striker for creating a spark with a a piece of flint in order to make a fire. However I've not been able to get a spark from the 1095 steel that I'm using.

The problem I THINK I'm having is getting the steel properly tempered to create that spark. I've tried differentially hardening a piece of 1095 thinking that somewhere on that piece of steel will be a "sweet spot" that will create a spark. No luck though.

What type of steel makes a good striker and how should it be tempered?

Taking a piece of flint to various steel tools in my shop I found that only the face of one hammer head will produce sparks when striking it with a hard rock like flint. None of the screw drivers, wrenches, pliers, etc will make a spark. Yet, you can put almost any old piece of steel (that won't make a spark with a flint) to a grinder and be rewarded with a shower of sparks. What gives?

LonePine
AKA Paul Meske, Wisconsin
 
1095 makes about the best strikers there are, but the steel has to be very hard. You don't say what your process is, but a striker needs to be as close to full hard as it can be, then tempered at no more than 300°. Many strikers are not tempered at all in the area of the action, and only tempered in the grip portion. That is how mine are. I quench my strikers in warm brine, and yes, they are subject to break if dropped on a hard surface.
When grinding steel, you are ripping particles loose from the body of the steel at a high rate of continuous speed and the particles are burning from the friction involved. Striking a flint to hard steel is the same principle, but at a much reduced rate and amount.
 
Haven't tried this on a knife, but made plenty of strike-a-lights (chispas) from old files. Don't see why 1095 would not be fine. You've got one second to get the piece from the forge white hot into the quench. Then decarburize-- grind or sand the surface lightly. I don't temper.
 
I made some from some W2, with no temper. They work great; just make sure you get any decarb off.
 
i made a striker from 1075 and it worked great. i took the rc up to 65rc and didnt temper it. you want it hard so it keeps a square sharp edge.
 
Hmmmmm... There seems to be a theme here, harder is better. I thought that if the steel was as hard as possible it would be impossible to scape a piece off of it to make the spark. Maybe,... just maybe it needs to be SO hard that a person "chips" or "cracks" a piece off to make the spark. With four people having success I will retry and let you know what happens. Thanks a bunch. This had been bugging me for over a year.

LonePine
AKA Paul Meske, Wisconsin
 
As I said, in my experience, 300° temper is about the limit for decent sparks. Full hard is better, easier to get good sparks. Flint is much harder than hard steel. Things change a bit in the case of a flintlock rifle. Then the flint is driven with much more force, and much faster than by hand power. The frizzen, steel strike plate, needs a wee bit more temper. 375° is the standard recommended temper if the frizzen is 1095, but will still work OK at tempers upwards of 425°, just not as well. Full hard also works well here, but there is a risk of breaking the frizzen, and only the strike recieveing area should be that hard, or it will break. Sooner or later.
 
UPDATE
I took a piece of scrap 1095 and heated it red hot and quenched it in water. It was a quick and dirty heat treatment. No sparks. BUT... I found another piece of steel that I had hardened previously and found I could get sparks on the very tip of it. This is frustrating but I think I'm on the right path with all your suggestions and experience guiding me. It was driving me crazy, and that would have been a real short drive. Thanks a bunch guys.

LonePine
AKA Paul Meske, Wisconsin
 
I just forged one tonight out of 1080. I quenched mine in water and left it full hardness. Throws all kinds of sparks with flint, chert, and obsidian. No problems at all. It makes sparks easily with little effort.

It did crack when I quenched it right towards the tip. However, after banging the end on my anvil and throwing it on the concrete floor several times, it has yet to break.

Others I've made in the past, I quenched then tempered to about 200-250*. They worked pretty good but as mentioned, full hardness makes the most sparks.
 
Tai, do you find the larger grain less likely to crack, or what is your reason for doing that? If you don't mind? The reason I ask, is that I found if I normalize the strikers, many crack longitudinally. If I just heat and quench in brine, I never lose one. Yet!
 
That doesn't sound like it's even actually 1095. If you got the steel to bright red hot and quenched in water it should throw sparks no problem...if it's actually 1095.
 
Though I used my MAP torch I don't think I got it hot enough. I'm gonna be re-carpeting bedrooms for the next couple days so I won't be able to spend time on this. I'm gonna use my propane and MAP torches to try to get better heat. If that doesn't work then it will have to wait until I do some blade heat treating in my coffee can forge.

I got the steel from Jantz.

How does a person "grow the grain"? and what does it mean?

Paul Meske
 
I don't know the details of what Tai does, but if you over heat and hold it a few moments before quench you would grow the grain. With a short soak at high heat you should also be making the grain more uniform in size. I am thinking the uniformity of grain may give less chance of cracking, but don't know why it would not be even better if the grain were fine rather than large. I would think maybe around 1600° or a bit more with a few minutes of soak time would grow it, but I'd like to know why that would be better for a striker.
 
Growing the grain helps it chip out easier and throw larger sparks. I've never had one crack or break on me yet though.

I'd never heard of growing the grain before, but tried it and it did seem to help quite a bit.

Try it and see what you think. Just soak it at a higher heat for a few minutes before the quench.

If you are using a mapp gas torch, set the striker on a fire brick and one behind it or use some refractory wool on the bottom and draped loosely over the top to help reflect the heat and bump the temp., up.
 
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I have done some tests on strikers including incorporating them into knives.

Steel steel begins to lose its ability to cast sparks (with flint and steel) at about 55 HRC or by colour, peacock blue (Assuming it was fully hardened to begin with. Hypereutectoid steels are great for strikers... finally a use for those yard sale files!!!

Here were my results from testing 5 strikers of each steel. These are the temperatures, colour and approximate HRC, (tested with files) at which they stopped sparking.

5160 (60HRC as quenched) - 425F, brown, 54HRC
1070/80 (60-61HRC as quenched)- 450F, brown/purple, 55HRC
1084/95 (62-63HRC as quenched)- 550F, dark blue, 56HRC
O1 (63HRC as quenched) - 575F, dark blue, 56HRC


As far as incorporating them into a knife... I tried hardening the butt of the tang and it worked well.

However, I realized that as long as I was fully quenching the entire blade and tempering, that the spine kept its ability to throw a spark and was still tough as nails. Infact, I have an O1 chopper that I select tempered the spine to bark blue and it still throws sparks like crazy. Obviously, you can't edge quench and expect sparks.

One thing to note is that you have to grind away the decarb after the quench to get the best results with flint and steel.

There is no need to grow the grain... especially on a knife (even just the butt). I do agree that you get maximum sparks with grain growth... but I have seen several strikers break this way. If you use your striker to knap the flint back to sharp... be careful. Personally, I temper my dedicated strikers no different than I temper my knives. I sell ALOT and have never had a single complaint or break.

Finally, a thread to dump this info in..... lol.

Rick
 
SUCCESS AT LAST!

I took a small scrap piece of 1095 steel with a straight side and smoothed off the sharp edges so I wouldn't cut myself, but left the striking edge with grind marks running perpendicular to the edge.

To heat it I suspended it on a piece of wire and pointed a propane torch at one side and a MAP torch at the other side and started heating it. It got red hot and I thought about quenching it but noticed that it wasn't a uniform color. I left it in the flames to see if it would even out and the color got brighter so I left it until it was really BRIGHT red hot then quickly dunked it in water. This was hotter than the last time I tried. I cleaned off the edge and I have a functional striker!

I'm pretty sure that I'd not gotten the steel hot enough in the past. It also makes me doubt the ability of my coffee can charcoal forge to adequately heat blades for heat treating.

My sincere thanks for all the information and tips. I can die a happy, contented, fulfilled person now. Not that I had any plans, I'm just saying... ;-)

LonePine
AKA Paul Meske, Wisconsin
 
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