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Post by carb1er on Jan 30, 2013 5:14:03 GMT
Every summer I go fly fishing on the Deschutes River in OR. The river has a very active railroad that runs along it, and with the huge canyon walls on both sides there is very limited access. (We do a 2 1/2 day float and from the time we put in to the time we take out we are completely cut off from the world). SO anyways, when they replace the railroad spikes on the tracks they toss the old ones to the side and since almost nobody has access except by boat, thousands of old rail road spikes litter the sides of the track. Needless to say every year I take back 10-15 spikes that are in decent shape. This last year I stumbled upon a very unique railroad spike that had a small warped head and was about 1.25-1.5 inches longer then a normal spike. Surprised by the find I took it home with me and wanted to make something unique out of it. The first thing I wanted to do was fix the warped looking head, but after heating it in my forge one strike with the hammer and it popped clean off! At this point I had a solid bar of steel so I decided to make the longest railroad spike knife I could possible make. The blade ended up being about 1/4in under 12in. Don't know if I should call it a short sword or a long knife. Rough shape after forging; cleaned up w/ angle grinder:  After heat treatment (warm water quench); fitting the handle (curly maple). I like the look of the scale left over and since it was for me I decided to keep it.  Final product!  |
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Post by KentsOkay on Jan 30, 2013 5:58:53 GMT
That is fantastic, the maple grip looks great!
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SanMarc
Senior Forumite
Posts: 3,193
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Post by SanMarc on Jan 30, 2013 6:15:11 GMT
Nice work! Yeah you can get two good sax's out of the longer spikes......
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Post by carb1er on Jan 30, 2013 6:40:48 GMT
Thank you!
Are longer spikes common? I thought I had found some weird anomaly.
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Post by aussie-rabbit on Jan 30, 2013 8:50:55 GMT
I know where a line was ripped up a few years ago, may take the trailer and collect some spikes !
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Jan 30, 2013 9:00:29 GMT
Cool!! Good forging.
Did you have any problems with the steel not hardening up properly? Many rail road spikes are not made from high carbon steel and won't get hard even when quenched in brine.
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Post by Onimusha on Jan 30, 2013 17:40:39 GMT
I was wondering the same thing.
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Post by carb1er on Jan 30, 2013 18:52:58 GMT
Thanks man, first thing out of my forge I was proud enough to post somewhere.
First two attempts at heat treat I had an issue getting the blade an even temp (my forge isn't long enough) which resulted in a slight warp of the blade. After a few normalizing cycles and a very careful heating process the quench was finally successful; albeit not as hard as I would have liked it to be. I wish I had something to scratch test the HRc on it to know for sure but Id say it at least got a little bit harder, it hold a pretty damn sharp edge considering it's railroad spike steel. This project was more to practice working with longer blades to see if I could start scaling up my projects a little bit.
BTW; does anyone have any recommendations on heat treating longer blades? I have a propane forge but it's a semprini getting blades that are longer then 8in's to evenly heat and I would really like to try and start making swords now.
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Post by Onimusha on Jan 30, 2013 19:13:03 GMT
You can get some bricks and make a long charcoal forge. Run a 2" pipe down the length with holes drilled in it for air. It worked for Paul Champagne. May he rest in peace.
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Post by carb1er on Jan 30, 2013 19:17:18 GMT
Alright cool I was thinking of something like that, just wasn't sure if that's how everyone else did theirs.
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SanMarc
Senior Forumite
Posts: 3,193
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Post by SanMarc on Jan 30, 2013 20:26:43 GMT
The longer ones are rare, as to the carbon content they are about 1040-60, I havnt run into any of the mild steel ones yet....
A simple heat treat test of part of the spike will tell you if they will harded or not, something all smiths had to do back in the day.....
My Forge is long enough to do a wakisaki, propane mongo burner.....
...SanMarc.
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Post by Lukas MG (chenessfan) on Jan 30, 2013 22:09:04 GMT
An easy way to ROUGHLY check the carbon content in the steel is a watching the sparks when grinding. The more "stars", the more carbon. Nothing beats taking a chuck, heating it to non magnetic, quenching it and checking for hardness though. That's something one should always do when working with mystery steel.
As I said, good forging, man. It might not rival a blade made from good high carbon steel but it sure was great practice and the end result looks lovely. Kudos!!
Now get yourself a nice piece of known quality steel and show us some more goodies!!
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Post by chrisperoni on Jan 30, 2013 23:15:55 GMT
could the head be used to test the hardness?
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Post by carb1er on Jan 30, 2013 23:36:28 GMT
Thanks, that's actually that's a pretty good idea; I have to broken head lying around somewhere so I'll quench that guy next time the forge is running and see what the result is like so I don't have to scratch up the polish.
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Post by chuckinohio on Mar 22, 2013 13:47:03 GMT
Railroad spikes now a days run about 35 to 40 points of carbon across the board. Water quenching will get them as hard as they are going to get.
The longer spikes mentioned above are referred to as 'Frost Spikes' in the industry. They are used to pull rail back down to the ties when it suffers from a frost heave. You can find them in railyards that track gangs work out of generally.
Your best bet for finding the longer frost spikes on your own is to look around under trestles or bridges.
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Post by handmadeknives on Jan 30, 2016 18:17:31 GMT
The spike you're talking about is called a Boat Spike or Boat Nail. They are usually made from carbon steel. I found one around Christmas at my sisters house and it was covered in rust so I brought it home and then ground all the rust off and made a short sword out of it.
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Post by Madmartigen on Jan 30, 2016 19:30:04 GMT
Perhaps this will be of some help... Sorry if it has been posted already. Attachments:
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Mikeeman
Member
Small Business Operator
Posts: 2,904 
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Post by Mikeeman on Jan 30, 2016 19:35:35 GMT
Lots of threadomancers, as of late.
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Post by freq on Jan 31, 2016 8:23:33 GMT
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Post by randomnobody on Feb 2, 2016 10:36:43 GMT
Lots of threadomancers, as of late. Not many new things to get into, but there are a few new people around who are going to be exploring the older threads, too.  I don't know how I missed this thread the first time around, but neat. |
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