slit it and weld in 1095 or just call it a letter opener.. the Best that a spike can be is around 35-40 points of carbon so not really enough to get hard enough for a knife.

I know it's what he wants. To me just a box opener and not even a good one but I'll give him the best one I can I guess.

|quoted:

A customer handed me a rail road spike and says he wants a knife made forged out of it.

1. What do I quench it in ?

2. How do I heat treat it?

Tomorrow I'll give it a spark test and have told him I had doubts about the quality of the blade but I guess the heart wants what the heart wants.

Years ago I had used Rasps and files for my blades never a rail road spike.

Any suggestions ?

Hi Dave,

I'm going to warm this subject up again.

Start by doing a search on "Super Quench". It will harden low carbon steel better than anything else. A water quench alone will do nothing to mild steel.

Of course it will never be a "knife", but it will surprise you. I did a spike after I read about super quench. I got 50 cuts of sisal rope.

I hope I don't get in trouble, but here is a link to another forum where I posted my results.

http://knifedogs.com/showthread.php?11112-My-Experiment-With-Super-Quench

|quoted:

Hi Dave,

I'm going to warm this subject up again.

Start by doing a search on "Super Quench". It will harden low carbon steel better than anything else. A water quench alone will do nothing to mild steel.

Of course it will never be a "knife", but it will surprise you. I did a spike after I read about super quench. I got 50 cuts of sisal rope.

I hope I don't get in trouble, but here is a link to another forum where I posted my results.

http://knifedogs.com/showthread.php?11112-My-Experiment-With-Super-Quench

Thanks Bob it did seem to go by the wayside and I will take that into consideration and check it out. I did forge the spike and heat and quench it and of course in my opinion had very poor results. It barely hardened I do have a source for some spike higher in carbon so I'll get some of those and try again because the idea came out kind of nifty even though I messed the angle up. My son uses the machine and readjusted the Jig and I never checked the angle before I used it. I posted it don't be to critical first in 25 years and done the way I liked it.