Hardening A Section Of Rail, Will It Work?
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- Опубліковано 12 лис 2016
- In this video: Over the last week we have gotten several very useful comments on train rail, information on hardness and the differences that are out there when it comes to the various requirements for rail applications. We are going to machine and harden a small section of rail into a jewelers block for Vered. This is our first attempt at water hardening a piece of steel of unknown material composition.
Darkmoon Metals is a home based business start up, I have decided to live my dream and work for myself. I am a trained welder with a strong interest in blacksmithing. Dana, a long time friend and talented artist has teamed up with me to create truly unique products that will help us stand apart from other metal crafters. Join us for our ups and downs while we learn as we go. Trying to forge a new life in a dead economy that has left many blue collar people just trying to survive.
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When hardening a anvil move it around to prevent air pockets and cracking and it would cool faster
Next time if you want to completely harden something, agitate it in the water. If you gently put it in like you did it creates a vapour blanket and doesn't cool quickly.
i think its called the leidenfrost effect
@@matthewdonaldson5932 yep that's the one
Jeff - great video - I once saw a guy harden his anvil by loading it red-hot on a boat trailer and backing it into a lake....The idea was he needed a huge volume of water to quickly quench it. Thanks for sharing !!!!
Great job and thanks for taking the time to do your videos!
Jeff I wish I could do what you have done. but I can't Godspeed and I will watch what you are doing! !
I really like the experimental method you are demonstrating here. I learned a lot.
Hey Jeff, top informative project and man just love the bright paint to liven the workshop up. Well done. Gordon, AUS
I have a 4" tall and 7" tall peace of rail track. I was trying to find out if I could harden them thank you very much. Hopefully one day I will be able to get my head (and camera) together and start publishing videos half as informative as yours.
Thanks for the video Jeff. Can across your channel, very informative. Looking to get into hobby blacksmithing and this was a great watch. Cheers.
Great Job Jeff!!! Curious minds wanted to know and you delivered answers...
Jeff, years ago I was a car man with MoPac RR and I will attempt to answer your question regarding how the lip or ridge formed along the sides of the rail's head just to satisfy your curiosity. The rail head deforms over time due to the heavy loads carried along them and as the wheels of the train roll along the rail there is a tremendous force that will slowly displace the grains or molecules along the surface of the railhead and since the flange on the wheels runs along the inside of the rail the displacement is directed outward. If the ties and ballast did not move and absorb a lot of the energy the process would happen much faster and be much like the cold-rolled steel process. If you have seen how easily metal deforms when it was placed on top of a rail and then run over by a train you would be amazed at how quickly and easily the metal deforms and ends up being only a few hundredths of an inch. Despite the incredible forces involved a properly placed piece of metal can derail a train, so I do not recommend anyone try that or to mess around any railyards or train tracks as you can easily get killed or injured and it is also a federal offense. Now it would be good to contact a railroad if there is a railyard, car or diesel shop in the area and get a tour set up for your scouts and they could also work on completing some of the requirements for the railroading merit badge at this time. Anyway, I hope you found this helpful.
Peace!
good show, leaves great ideas for us newbies
Thank you Sir, great content! you just earned another subscriber.
Interesting video, thanks!
Thank you!
Bad ass, well done!!!
Thanks. That was interesting and helpful. Since im in the process of building my own forge and railroad anvil with horn. Peace brother
Now that was cool, I think you can drop it in and not worry. I've seen others do it. I tried that out on a cheap vice to harden it.
keep up the good videos.
as long as your quench tub is made out of metal instead of plastic it will melt the bottom and I feel like something should be said for heating up the water or oil before you quench
A little safety Lesson from a machinist - roll up your dang sleeves bro!! 👍😎
haha scary! i was nervous lugging that hardy hole stock from the forge to my anvil... cant imagine lugging that piece of track through a shop haha! ive seen guys do a running water quench on stuff like that with large mass... the reason for that is so that it cant really form a steam jacket. when you drop the piece in the water, it will form a jacket of steam around the piece. you can get away with a bucket quench if you aggitate the piece, but shaking a chunk of rail around with tongs holding it would get exhausting fast.
great project Jeff! have a great week!
I have been using track for forging knives. Being a beginner I see it as practice and cheep material,free that is. It's nice to know I was not wrong about how hard this can get.
Great video.
This is really exciting for me. Because I have a ton of it. And I was planning on drifting holes through the top to make axes because (in theory) they should be around 1080 steel with added manganese for toughness (not hardness). So this gives me a good idea of what to expect.
Thanks for these track vids brother, they are helpful! Nice paint job too, you might even say it's just grape 😉
I see what hue did there
excellent video made better by all the educational discussion it generated. I cut track with an antique electric hacksaw but have done it --once-- with a high tension hand hacksaw. (That's now off my bucket list). Two or three inch cross sections of track cut apart at the narrowest part of the vertical beam make quick hardy hole tools and bottom swages. Fitting the swage shank to diagonal dimension of the hardy hole puts the rail top swage working surface edges at a forty five degree angle to the long axis of the anvil. The remaining piece, the bottom of the rail, can become a hardy hot cut or hardy fuller. Fitting one of the bottom flanges to the diagonal of the hardy hole makes the opposite bottom flange the upright and the shorter middle beam a shoulder. Wood wedged in the hardy hole against what was the original bottom of the track base secures the improvised hardy tool. now I know I can harden them. thanks.
If you can get a chunk of rail from what is called a plug, which is a preassembled insulated rail joint which comes with 10ft rail attached. They are made of hardened steel instead of softer rail steel. They make a better rail anvil, I used to work for the railroad and mine hasn’t shown one ding in the last thirty years of use. I even used it for a large caliber target for a couple years.
FNG here. 1st, your advice and these videos have helped me by leaps and bounds! So, thank you. 2nd, what machine and bit/s did you use to machine the surfaces flat? Regular drill press?
This was a great job. It had to take quite awhile to get it nonmagnetic but I’ve been wanting to do it and you’ve given me the motivation to do it. Regarding that lip on the side, I’ve got two 36” sections and both of mine have a similar lip on one side. Maybe they’re made like that?
jeff i see that you have a bread rack it looks. like great for small parts i have 4 big ones. now
to the railroad video good job on making it hard i have seen folks use i think it's 4140 plate on top of the rail. i think that what they use on the tops on anvils.thanks have a good life
Try using a wire brush to get rid of the chips on your fleece.
I have seen knife makers, use an Oil quench then bring it up to a red color and then allow it to air quench. they say it would be better than just water, maybe next I'm you might try that. great video and I learned some too. thanks for sharing.
not that it matters, railroad metal is actually pretty soft metal, and designed to reshape itself, which is why you see rail grinders reshaping the rail. the wheels on a railroad car are actually the hardend steel
I never worked in a rail plant, so I am NO expert. I would think that a brine quench would help to a degree, as well as agitation during the process, as mentioned below, to avoid the steam jacket from happening. Thanks for the video!
The 'lip' on the rail that you referred to is from the weight of the train pressing the inside radius of the wheel onto the track.
The water temp reaching near boiling must make it a little less hard surley...?....some added salt in the bath allows a higher heat.....lots of salt....will make it very hard... liquid heated lead is supposed to be the best....but i wouldnt think it do-able without a speacialist device.
Best way to test rebound, use a 1 inch ball bearing, drop from 10 inches, should bounce back to at least 6-7 inches for a good anvil, also to quench you should use canola oil and agitate the material rapidly, you could also roll the hot metal in carbon powder then back into furnace, repeat a couple of times this will increase the carbon content, before quenching in the oil, another way is to nitrate will get deeper hardening 👍
why does this channel have more information then subscribers this channel is better than most channels on blacksmithing
Honestly, I believe it is because I am sometimes inconsistent in how often I post videos... I am working on uploading content more often and have seen an increase in how fast subscribers are coming to the channel. I'm glad you enjoy watching and have found the videos useful.
can you roughly gauge the hardness with a automatic centerpunch
also if it gets damaged you can always weld a piece of W-2 tool steel on top to resurface it
Or AR500.
i suppose for the hobbyist on a small scale, there is something nostalgic when using a piece of rail, not to mention the cost, and delivering saving. i use an old lathe chuck and rail for hobo coin engraving and the like for practice. im still crap, but a tryer
Instead of quenching in regular tap water, try quenching in either brine, or better yet "super quench". Do a quick Google search for super quench and you'll find plenty of results for the recipe. Basically it's water with specific amounts salt and detergents and etc. added (depending of how much water you use) to it to speed up the quenching of the steel. When using plain water, especially when quenching a piece of steel with that much mass, tons of tiny bubbles envelope the hot steel causing what is known as a vapor jacket. This vapor jacket is actually not allowing the water itself to make contact with the surface of the steel, thus causing it not to cool fast enough in the water. Brine (and super quench) cause this vapor jacket to somehow ( I forget exactly why it works, but I know it works 😉) collapse, thus enabling the water to make and continue making contact with the surface of the steel cause it to cool much faster.
Another thing that helps with breaking up the vapor jacket is agitating the piece being quenched either up and down, or back and forth as much as you can. I say "either" up and down or back and forth because as a knife maker, when quenching blades with such thin cross sections, moving it side to side or stirring in a circle will cause the blade to warp usually pretty bad. However, with the amount of mass in a section of rail road, I don't think it really matters how you agitate it, just as long as you do it.
So in short ( lol ) I would really suggest trying you next quench not in oil, but in a "super quench" solution while making sure to agitate it as much as you can. If that STILL doesn't harden enough, then case harden (carbonize the surface of) it, but still use either brine or super quench instead of plain water or oil, and agitate. Hope you find this somewhat useful 🙂. I enjoy your vids, keep em commin! 👍
@@kacper0291 ... your right about water never going over boil point ,it just steams off ; but ; only a comment here, I come from a small fishing town(village) where people do there own repairs to save money on travel... the steel quenched in tap water is hard but we often just throw it into the ocean (just off our docks a few feet deep) and it's much harder
Tested by many Fishermen for decades and sworn by
@@matthewdenty7760 maybe its because the pressure that shoves the steam away?
@@kacper0291.. just what I read ,, the "steam blankets" coming off the steel are slowed by the salt resulting in more water contact cooling ,, faster cooled harder it is
The lip forms on the outside of the rail, caused by the trains rolling over it . The flange on all the trains wheels ride on the inside of the rails and actually wear it down over the years.
I think the carbon content varies from track to track. I have some rail that was so hard I had to anneal it. I am making dues for the power hammer
I would like it harder, and maybe a few other alterations on the shape. I work on small projects, but the metal I'm working may be soft copper, brass, or hardened steel. I can't have a dozen small anvils around, no room to store them. I have one small normal shaped anvil that does most things okay, but won't do everything. I'd also take the surface to a very fine sanding, like 5000 grit or higher, since some of the items I work on will pick up any imperfections in the work surface. So, what steel would actually give the hardest surface, yet be differentially hardened so that it will take the pounding and not crack or break? I wouldn't know, I don't do hardening or forging to any great degree, mostly I'm doing repairs.
Great video, going to sub to your channel. I watched another video where a bloke was water quenching and bigger chunk of metal and they pored water over it as they said that dipping it in water would create a steam jacket around the metal? I think oil might be better? Regards
Hi Jeff !!!
Question ...
Do a train rail metal works for forging a sword ???
I saw that even after hardenind in forge , the metal is soft ...
What is the percentage of carbon to a train rail ???
Thanks in advance !!! 😊😊😊😊
you need to move the steel while quenching, if you don, a steam jacket will form around the piece and will not quench completely
that lip forms from the wheels going around curves and actually pushing the rail out of shape
What is the chemical composition and Rc hardness of rail steel? Is it just construction steel with a somewhat higher percentage of manganese?
Hi Jeffrey just watch your video on hardening a railway track in water do you think if it was in oil would it be harder so what I’m saying does oil make steel harder then water in your opinion ✌️🇦🇺🇺🇸
The price of track I've got the bottom flange is 8" the top is 6" and it was all I could do to Mill the top flat I could only take of .015 at a time and went through all three side of a three price cutter the price is the exact size of the tracks running through our city. It has a Rockwell of 55
It really is necessary to harden at fire a Yunke made of a piece of rail?
oil quenching might improve, well everything.
Strong magnet to remove shards.
if you want it properly hard you'll have to case harden it... get some casenit , get it none magnetic and dip it.... when it's cool it will be harder then tattood granite.
In the future I want to try and get a section of rail that I can cut up... water quench one piece, oil quench one and now thanks to you try case hardening one. Just need to find more of this stuff at the scrap yard. Thanks for the comment :)
not a problem, the thing is with steel it's not the iron that makes it really hard, it's the alloys and carbon levels. the heating/cooling changes the toughness and brittleness of the steel, but in order to produce hardness you need to introduce carbon onto or into the material.
most mild steel you commonly get has a very low carbon content, hence the ability to harden it is reduced, if you case harden the surface you are doing the same process more or less that was used to make armour plate, that is introducing a material to the surface that changes the properties of the steel.
the old way of doing is is case hardening, the old warships used to use the Krupps process, which involved baking the steel in a high carbon atmosphere for a few weeks, allowing carbon to diffuse into the surface of the plate, the end result was surface hardened plates that were up to 19 inches thick and were so hard most artillery just left a small star pattern on the surface.
Don't forget to sand cool it in a bucket of sand or flour dry kitty litter as my uncle called it or just hard clay soil thats dry. cover it fully in it. one thing about hardening just one part of somthing the cool side will wick up some of the heat so you could just air cool it and get it harder to some extent depends on how much carbon is in it. Now one question is why would you want to strike case hardened steel with a hammer? can it blow up or shatter? is there enough carbon to turn it brittle? You might be better off with a semi soft material. By the way I used to drill and saw stainless steel
when i worked in a machine shop and I can tell you its a lot tougher then train track is, it requires a lot slow cutting speeds with tool steel.
I'm going out on a limb and state train track is close to 1018 hot rolled metal or structural steel. That's purely a guess as I've never done a Rockwell test on any track to test its hardness. Does anyone know what the normal hardness is for Railroad track in North America assuming Canadian track is the same?
" I think it is and its a standard for RR's but not private rails like trolley cars subways and mines or anything like that"
Typical railroad rails are manganese steel. This material work hardens
on the surface of the rail crown under the impact of the train wheels
while leaving the bulk of the rail softer and ductile. When high
quality Thermite welds are made a "packet" of alloying metal is added to
the top of the rail weld to allow it to harden like the rest of the
rail.
Journeyman TIG welder here and well versed in metallurgy, the RR track is made from different alloys, but tend to run .70% carbon to .80%, called 90 UTS rail or Grade 880. A .45% and higher carbon content will get quite hard. RR track has to be high carbon, the train wheel is 1050 or 1155 steel so the RR track must be harder, or it will deform, disastrously if heavily trafficked. Understand the track is not fully hardened or it wouldn't bend or machine. It is so thick that trying to heat treat it would only succeed in making it hard to about 1/8-1/4" deep, depending on sectional density.
ispatguru.com/rails-and-rail-steel/
Most RR spikes are .30% and not very hardenable, but there are some that were .6-8% and definitely hardenable. Only way to tell is to heat treat and see.
Just FYI, steel bed frame angles are like 1080 steel as well.
This is very helpful info! What do you mean by a bed frame angle? In my head I can only picture long angle iron with some holes with casters attached
@@briholt100 Same thing you said. Bed frames are made of high carbon steel as well, but it may differ from 1055 to 1080 and treated to spring hardness. I would treat it as mystery steel
My friend, you need to learn how to quench, then do it again on your table anvil. I promise you a total success. For guidance please see how a katana being quenched by a Japanese sword maker, you will have an idea. Many thanks.
Machine setting?
Interesting ! Thanks ! (:
Use a magnet to remove the steel from the fleece.
Someone did a test on a piece of track, high carbon steel and mild steel. Small pieces. So, as Shawn C notes, the rate of cooling makes a big difference in the resulting hardness. That said, it would be quite a challenge to move a somewhat heavy piece of steel around the shop when it's really hot. ua-cam.com/video/M8KvKFQwtUs/v-deo.html
There's a UA-cam video of guys in Australia who make anvils, and when the cast steel anvil is pulled from the mold, they place it outside and douse the top surface with a hose to get it to the proper hardness.
Hi Jeff, I posted a comment on rail composition on your previous vid, but forgot to add a couple of things. The piece of rail you have there is quite worn, the edge profile has been gradually worked until it flows out sideways. (the bit you are milling off) The actual running surface is work-hardened by the constant passage of wheels that are exerting 10+ tons per square inch; manganese steels work-harden and are designed for toughness and durability rather than hardness. Early railways used cast iron; they were brittle and snapped often until steel was developed. there are varying levels of rail, pick one from the spec number rolled into the web.
Typical rail compositions are like this in UK:
www.iorw.org/jobknow4.html
nlo114 hey buddy u seem pretty knowledgeable about this. I was looking at stuff to make an anvil out of and i came to the conclusion that the brackets used to tie railroad tracks down would provide a cleaner-wider surface for me to work with. if I flipped it upside down. I was wondering though if I should make an attempt at hardening said bracket. I have no idea about the composition of this bracket so im kind of at a loss. I plan on using it to make tools and knives so it will be taking a beating. what say you about this?
Jeffrey
FYI golf balls work nice for file handles
Do you heat up the tang of the file and melt it into the ball or just drill a hole in the ball?
Drill the hole .This works nicely on account the ball is round and makes a nice handle.
Jeffrey Santo wranglerstar did a video where he made golf ball handles by drilling a hole slightly smaller than a nut, then pressing/gluing a nut in the recess. Then it bites and locks the file in place
you know..... some golf balls contain asbestos.... just saying....
Small amounts of asbestos do nothing. I have asbestos gloves. I'd only worry about it if you drill golf balls for a living.
Hi Mr. Santo. Looks like you are done for now with its
intended purpose. For the future I can tell you with 80% accuracy the composition
of the rail is as follows. 0.55 to 0.77 percent Carbon, 0.6 to 0.9 percent
Manganese, 0.1 to 0.23 percent Silicon, 0.04 percent maximum Phosphorus concentration,
and the remaining % Iron. I read all the comments below and would recommend super
quench once its non-magnetic. Use cold, cold water with salt and liquid soap.
(Google Super Quench) If I knew the exact dimensions of your RR track I could
tell you with 99% accuracy what the composition is. RR track is identified in
pounds per yard and by year and manufacturer. For the most part the formula I
gave you above should work fine. If you weld on oh say a top of 4140 Annealed
Cold Roll Steel at least ¾” thick with E7018 welding rod you will have to preheat
with a torch first for a great weld. Then Oil quench between 1525° -1625° F and
finally temper in a 5000 F oven for 2-3 hours, shut the oven off and
wait for it to air cool to the touch. Bingo, a very versatile anvil that did
not cost $500.00 like the one I saw in your great video. Hope this helps out
for others as well. I’m just a noviceJ
Correction : temper in a 500 degree F oven for 2-3 hours (Sorry about that)
Wouldn't it be better to do an oil quench?
I thought about doing an oil quench, but I was worried about how small my oil quench container was. I only use it for quenching small knives and tools like punches and chisels. My concern was that large piece of material causing the oil to boil over and spill. I figured a flaming puddle of liquid on the work bench and floor could have led to larger problems :)
Why harden it if you only want to use it for non ferrous metals?
also track is a work hardened steel
Kinda shocked that hot steel didn't make that quantity of water hotter
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity#Table_of_specific_heat_capacities the volumetric heat capacity of water is greater than steel, so 1 gallon of steel cooling 100 degrees won't heat a gallon of water by so much. A quart (my estimate) of steel v 25 gallons of water = overwhelming win for the water.
The rail has the lip because of the steel being gradually rolled over, off the side, by the car wheels. This gives some idea of the hardness of the rail. Not super hard, still maulable.
* By heating steel to critical temperature & quenching in an oil bath, (while moving your mass in a figure-8 motion thru the oil, [^*Hint*^ use an automotive cherry-picker] the result will be a case-hardened mass of steel that is very resistant to the impact of blacksmith tools & won't oxidize before your grand-kids have grand-kids...
! By quenching in water (regardless of tap, brine, or other) only serves to increase the porosity in your rail (similar to the brittleness of cast iron at a microscopic-level) as well as hasten oxidation (rust), resulting in an inferior, maleable anvil that will be prone to stress fatigue, tooling imprints & an undesired headache from the resonating ping. [try pounding on an I-beam for the same effect]
That's one way to make a cup of Joe
the piece of track I use is so work hardened that I didn't have to do anything to it
Not being a smartass. I honestly want to know if you can bring a section of rail to nonmagnetic temp and quench it in oil to make it hard enough to forge steel on? I know nothing except a real anvil is expensive.
The problem is there is more than one company that makes train rail, and it has been made for over 150 years. During this time the alloy has changed and there is way to know how hard a section of rail can become. It is also worth noting that a section of used train rail tends to be harder than a scrap piece of new rail, it can work harden over time. Apparently driving a couple thousand tons over it from time to time can make what would be the striking face a little more resilient.
2:33. it's steel, use a magnet.
Thats how hot water systems were years ago....heat up the irons in the fire....drop one in the tub....no need for a complicated expensive hot water system.....too easy.....dont drop.
"...not gonna heat treat this." ? ! What do you think you just did ?
lebomm johnson he may have meant tempered.
lebomm johnson heat treating is both hardening and tempering. He only hardened it
The process's of "Hardening" steel & "Tempering" steel...is a completely different animal...smh...Next time, do us all a solid and educate yourself before you speak. Some people come here to learn.
Hardening and tempering are both processes carried out with heat. Hardening is usually done first and results not only in hardness, but also brittleness. Tempering is done at a lower temp to reduce brittleness while increasing toughness. Both can be referred to as "heat treatment", but each accomplishes a different goal.
Jeff,
Thanks for the video!
It appears that if you are using a rail for a home blacksmith setup that hardening a rail is not necessary.
Would you agree?
Thanks again,
Chris
Since it only slightly hardened all I did was increase the lifespan of the working face, I highly doubt that there would be a significant important in rebound for forging. I think a rail is good just as it is out of scrap yard, been using one for a while now... I don't think it is necessary, this was just an experiment I shared for those who were as curious as I was about the outcome.
Thanks Jeff!
Try leaving a ball peen imprint on a rail before it's fly cut.
Golf ball makes the best file handle