Forging the mini railroad spike tomahawk - blacksmith challenge - part 2

Continuing our mini railroad spike project. I will discuss briefly the differences in annealing and normalizing steel. We will finish our tomahawk then harden, temper and grind.

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Blacksmithing and related activities can be hazardous. These videos are not a substitute for competent professional instruction. Your safety is your sole responsibility. Always use appropriate safety equipment including eye and ear protection when working in the shop. Follow manufactures safety guidelines for the use of all equipment. In the event something shown in one of these videos seems unsafe, it is up to you to make the appropriate changes to protect yourself.

[davedreds]

"You'll just have to watch all the videos over the next week - sorry": Hahaha. You're not sorry at all! I like your style. Im pretty sure most of us are going to watch them anyway. You make a good teacher 👍

[workwithnature]

I think they want the knife to change its grain structure from large to small, as much as possible before any hardening is done, so it does not have as much of a chance to warp / crack. The hammer blows apparently changes the grain structure to a much larger grain and that seems to create the stresses. Having three goes at normalizing gives it the best chance to get to that smaller more uniform state. That is what I read in several places when I tried to figure out my machete.

[ericferguson]

That little tomahawk would make a grandkid happy.

[thesprinkleddonutforge]

That was really interesting. I learned a lot from you as always. Thanks for all your time and labour. It's much appreciated.

[workwithnature]

I would for sure try to through it though :) Looks really great.

[Zogg]

Really nice mini tomahawk! I've got a lot of practice to go before I can do that, but it's on my list I want a mini tomahawk of my own. Love it, thank you for the inspiration 😊😊😊👏👏👏👏👏

[hosiercraft]

Allot of your work looks more finished when your done forging than many peoples thinks look after they finish grinding and polishing. Nice attention to detail and I really agree that you should forge to as close to finished as possible. Great job

[garethbaus]

Knives tend to be thinner than what the official heat treating advice is designed to be used with, and some of the differences could be adjusting for this.

[bentoombs]

It turned out awesome. I know I had a blast making mine but that's a great idea actually making a railroad spike at a high carbon steel. that's pretty impressive. I'm on it!!

[ericcartrette]

In my day job I'm a bandsaw filer for a sawmill.  If the saw blade cracks and I weld it, I have to heat to a dull red and let it cool slowly over a matter of minutes.  Most saw filers call this annealing.  Once I tried to explain to a much more experienced filer that what we do to the saw is actually normalizing because annealing would take hours, not minutes.  He gives me a blank stare for a moment and said, "It's annealing."  So I laughed to myself and decided not to try to convince him again.

[bc]

I like using wood ashes, and most of the time I pre-warm my ashes by putting in real hot piece for a few minutes.

[garethbaus]

This is just barely too big for a necklace.

[paulorchard]

Best explanation of normalising and annealing I have come across! Thanks John!

[dmitriust]

So i have been watching a lot of your videos now, and have started playing with some hot steel. I keep hearing you talk about vermiculite to help anneal steel i have perlite on hand. Do you think it would work for annealing or should i juat go get some vermiculite? Love watching your videos i feel like im getting some great information!!

[fieroboom]

And when you combine both, you're annormealizing it... 🤔🤔

[vegasprepper]

Just found your channel. Love your content.

[Vikingwerk]

The perfect tomahawk for slicing and dicing summer sausage.

[steveking]

fantastic must have been a good vacation! Beautiful little spike project, has a nice balanced look, be nice little kindling splitter too treasure, your presentation style gets better all the time!

[forMacguyver]

Forced to endure another week of really great videos to see the final product, oh no ! Say it aint so  ;)

[BigDog]

Really nice end piece, good to follow all the ups and downs, good honest work. I need to get my new forge up and going.