Ryan,

Can't argue with the Masters. Not many places you can ask a ? and get prompt answers from several Master Smiths.

If you examine your routine, and feel you are doing everything the same, but have different

outcome, I would consider that the changing light in your shop while forging may be effecting the colors you see.

When I started forging blades 25 years ago, I also used coil springs. It was easy to find, straighten and forge. For the first year or so, that's all I used. It is an inexpensive way to start learning temps, colors, and hammer control. However, even some of the blades I forged that hardened well, and seemed sound, had hidden cracks. A good whack of the spine on the anvil revealed these ( Bill Moran demonstrated this test), as did bending tests, when the blade cracked in areas that were not even hardened. Who knows how many time the spring has been flexed.

I recommend using hot dog steel (never heard that, but love it <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//laugh.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':lol:' /> )for practice only.

By all means, keep using it for forging practise. If you finish a knife with it (again, for practice), don't put your name on it, or sell it.

Keep at it,

Dan Hockensmith

PS Virgin 1/4 x 1" 5160 is nowhere near $10 a foot.

I rechecked the prices on admiral, for some reason I thought 1/4 by 1 1/2 inch 6ft bar was in the $70 range. Now I see it is around $20 which is more reasonable. Time to stop being cheap. Thanks for the advice on not touchmarking or signing junk blades, I had just planned on leaving them unmarked and giving them away to people I know as using knives, in trade for small favors such as gifts of scrap springs and files.

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nothing to worry about Kevin I would never piggy back another man's style, just expressing similar interests in cultural blades.

Not at all, believe me that I am flattered, just a Little self deprecating humor suggesting that folks may want to wait and see if I can sell one of my designs before running with it themselves <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//wink.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//biggrin.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />

lol

maybe one day I will become time efficient enough that I can AFFORD to sell a blade.

May I jump in and muddy the waters with a recent experience I had at a public forging demonstration?

A bunch of us guys were forging at a state level hunting expo, just exposing the general sporting public to the forged blade. I had my own steel with me and would have used it, but one of the apprentice members handed me a piece of 3/16 X 1 bar of 1084. He more or less insisted I use it in the spirit of generosity. I forged out the blade, cut it off the parent bar, and started choking down the tang at the back of the ricasso and it literally tore even though it was medium red. I was shocked. I had never ever had a blade crack during the forging process. Besides, what a strange place to crack/tear, the ricasso. ? I immediately knee jerked a diagnosis, which later I decided was counter intuitive. I thought maybe the bright sunshine had fooled our sense of the steel's temperature, but I am convinced we made allowances for that, and besides the bright sun will usually cause you to forge too hot instead of too cold.

I cut it off and forged a complete blade (which I later discarded), but the next guy was up an used the same bar of 1084. I was watching him closely and he did everything right, in my view. He was cutting it off the parent bar using a hot cutter and I watched, with my own eyes, the steel spiderweb where it was being cut, even though it was full red and in the perfect range for cutting. He also had a blade crack down the middle of the blade, parallel with the length. Now that's wierd.

So then I knew this was not something that we were causing to happen. I took that bar and got rid of it. We started using a new bar and everything was fine from then on.

Now , I had to figure this thing out and while driving, the "light bulb" came on and I think I know what happened.

First of all, the bar was from Uncle Al's stock. I recognized it since I have some and use it too. So it's good steel. Something happened to this individual bar from the time it was purchased from Al and the time we started forging it. This is what I think happened. I beieve the guy who handed us the steel, who again was well intentioned, had used this bar to stir and heat his oil. In his mind he was heating the oil, but he was also setting this bar up for spiderwebbing. I think he stirred his oil and stuck it right back in his stack and it sit there fully hardened and just tore itself to pieces. The cracks were already in place when we got the bar in our hands explaining the strange directions and locations of the cracks.

This may or may not have direct implications to your circumstances, but I bet it does. Somewhere down the line, whether in your possession or not, the steel was over stressed.

I am sure as shootin that I have my problem diagnosed, but can only speculate about yours. If nothing else, maybe my experience will shed some light on what MIGHT happen under the same circunstances.

I tried another, different bar of steel yesterday, a leafspring from a 70's model jeep 24" long, 7/16" thick that tapers to 1/4" on each end with the center hole cut out to make two sword blanks. I began drawing it out to even thickness and width and all was going well. I drew it out to 1/2 inch in thickness and 2 1/4" width aprox. 17" long before in the center I noticed a one inch square of the surface in the middle, center of the blank started to look like a crackle finish paint job. I immediately stopped working the piece and annealed it in vermiculite after cooling and holding at a cherry red for 5-7 min. Before I began forging yesterday I annealed all of the flat springs I had including the pieces that cracked on me before and I will surface grind and take pictures of the problem pieces today so that the cracks show well before I grind them completely away and start forging.

It looks like annealing everything fixed the problem. It even stopped the cracking in the pieces that were already spider webbed thanks everyone.

Ryan,

Help me here. If the bar is already spiderwebbed, annealing wont help. It's condition is already flawed and annealing wont do anything except keep it from getting more spderweb cracks. If I am misunderstanding you please clarify. Lin

I meant that after annealing I was able to grind away the weak spot and continue forging because it is a big piece of steel and wasn't far along in the drawing out part of the process, it will be a 30in long blade (kilij) and when I ground the spot away it was all on the surface and the piece was thick enough I ground away 1/4" off of the surface just to be sure. The crackling effect was only about a milimeter deep. I have drawn it out quite a bit more and ground the surface again to make sure the cracks didn't come back, so far so good. I had similar effects with a gladius and it too appears to be fine now, hopefully. Can't wait to get some virgin steel so I don't have to play this game of walking on egg shells while forging, hoping that cracks don't appear. I no longer have any confidence in scrap even from a a known source. The scrap I have left is all from a 93 chevy s10 that came from an acquaintance's truck and even though I was able to confirm the steel as 5160 I still don't trust it not to crack due to being used and possibly damaged in it's former life.

Also, I am signed up for the bladesmith intro class at Haywood and will be arriving early so I can attend the symposium which I preregistered for. I can't wait. Hopefully, I haven't created too many bad habits that need correcting by working before instruction, I would definitely count using scrap as one of these bad habits. I look forward to avoiding further bad assumptions.

Hello Ryan. Probably another thing you won't enjoy reading, sorry. Since these are used leaf springs, think about the stresses they have been under. How many flexes did they make? and what kind of driving or hauling was done? Chances are you may have more than surface cracks. There maybe stressed areas inside the bar or even hidden fractures. I would suggest making a test blade from the steel and testing it to destruction. Cut everything you can and then try to bend it. Always a good idea for found steel. Enjoy the Intro class.

Brion

I agree about the stress, which is why they are cracking, destructive testing sounds like fun, I haven't been able to bring myself to do it with all the work I put in but I think I will start. I would have ordered some new steel but I'm saving for hotel, food, class, gas, etc. I think I will make a hacker machete type gladius with the one I started and just do some minimal finishing and handle work, use same heat treat and see how well it stands up to heavy abuse.

Ryan, there is one other issue that may be causing the cracks. Cold anvil and hammer. They do heat up with repeated exposure to heated steel, but it might be worth laying a heated bar on the anvil to warm it up before forging.

You can recycle steel, but if it had a problem in its former life, you will probably not be able to correct the problem,ie micro cracks, no matter how hard you try. Toss it into the scrap bin as soon as you see the cracks. It ain't worth the strain on your soul!

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I have been using the same gas forge setup, same equipment for months and now cracking has started happening with everything I work on. I am using coil springs, leaf springs, and rebar and all of it cracks like this while working at orange heat. I am using a propane tank forge lined with 2 inches of ceramic wool and 2 3.5 inch thick firebricks to protect the bottom. It is fired by 2 zoeller forge made z-burners. I'm using a 4lb hammer and rail road anvil.

I don't know that I dare speak here after those with much more experience already have--but maybe I'll just give it a go anyway...

I've been forging the same recyclable steel that you have for about six years now. The only time that I have run into any problems with cracking was when I was working the piece too cool. I recently had a problem with a large piece that a couple friends of mine were working on. The steel is 5160, which I had ordered from Admiral Steel. Though the area they were forging may have been hot enough, I don't think that the surrounding area was. Since they were using a large hammer and double striking my conclusion was that the shock of the blows cracked the surrounding steel because it just wasn't quite hot enough.