About the Toothpaste – and Failed Forge Welds plus Mediocrity

Finishing a pair of the large chisels has allowed me to brush with dogshit flavored toothpaste again.

Below are pictures of one of the two chisels – sans the really final aesthetic work around the tang and up.

So, what are the pluses? The 80crv2 isn’t underhard. And the chisel (which is nearly 15″ long – and by itself weighs as much as a set of bench chisels with handles) is more useful as a paring chisel or sizer than I expected.

That’s fine. But, I expected the chisel to be better overall.

Why? First, this is the third forge welded bolster. I usually use mild steel with 26c3 chisels, and the bolster is smaller. I don’t like to overheat a whole lot and distort things, so a small part of the tang and the bolster blank are brought up to forge welding heat and then the business happens.

But, 80crv2 doesn’t seem to be amenable at the same temperatures, and what I probably would really love to have – pipe dream – is a high current induction heater to just turn the whole area yellow in a short period of time. I use an oxymapp brazing torch near the junction, which is a bit of an art as it could easily melt the steel and cut it. This after the whole joint is already as hot as it can get with two ts4000 torches. As often as I see advertisements that propane torches or forges can get to welding temperature, I’d hate to have any of my steels at that temperature long enough for them to get there – and in my experience, they don’t, anyway.

So, imagine, if you will, spending three hours or so on a chisel, putting the handle on, setting it and having the bolster move.

No bueno.

That brings up a gaggle of other questions afterward, because the area at the forge weld needs to be resurfaced and another go at it is needed. Each time, the tang gets a little smaller. Fortunately, it’s big.

If the weld is good, nothing should move it – not even smashing at it with a steel hammer. The first few times I learned to weld (smaller) bolsters on 26c3 chisels, I could tell if the weld was good by taking a chisel that maybe I’d keep for myself and hitting the bolster to see if I could seesaw it. If I could hit it long enough to bend over the tang and no separation or movement came in the weld, it’d be good for the long haul in a chisel.

So far, that’s been true. The weld is either deceiving and it moves quickly, or it never has after that.

The solution in this case was to find bar stock of something plain that’s higher carbon. this is harder to form and the whole process is a pain in the ass, but I think in this case, the steel that I used is forge welded. This chisel is for me, so maybe it will never matter. What I used, because I couldn’t locate 1095 that I thought I had on hand (did I actually throw it away? I may have – different story for a different day) in 1/4″ – was W2 steel. Which is only a slightly more modern water hardening steel than “cast steel”.

Two things became apparent. One – I have no interest in something that hard to forge weld. Two – if and when I make more than the first pair, they will be a different steel.

And then I finished the thing and tested it.

Mediocrity

80crv2 has some claims to fame. It is very tough, meaning your attempt to lean on this chisel and break it would be futile. If you could get it to do anything, it would bend instead.

It has ultra fine grain, and compared to lower carbon steels, it can get reasonably hard.

After setting up the chisel and paring beech and then malleting cherry, it seemed fine, but without iron carbides that are in something like files or 26c3 steel, you can feel that it’s a greasy smooth feeling very fine steel and it doesn’t have the bite that you’d recognize in something like Japanese chisels or really good older English chisels.

And so, trying to figure out where it just wasn’t right, I malleted end grain rosewood.

And without a lot of accommodation, it just doesn’t have the edge strength or stability. Is it on par with harbor freight chisels? No, it’s better than that. But it takes some effort to make something like this – just physically and time wise, so I cannot live with the idea that it won’t match the better vintage chisels, let alone the ones that I’ve made out of 26c3.

And because you can always double check a double check, I chased down an earlier chisel that I made out of a file (which is strikingly similar to 26c3 steel) and that chisel tolerated malleting the rosewood test stick that I use. One that is a little bit more dense than usual.

So, what now?

These are difficult to make due to the size based on what I have at hand, but I could get better at them and cut the time in half and probably not care.

There just isn’t enough upside with the 26c3 – something is missing vs. steels that have a surplus of iron carbides. I could tell when making plane irons that 80crv2 and 1084 both have this property – this greasy ultra fine feel, and when you make a comparable 1095 plane iron, you can instantly feel it has a crispness that 80crv2 and 1084 don’t have.

If I could get 26c3 stock in 3/8″, the fix would be simple. I could make them out of O1, but I just don’t love O1 long term for chisels – it’s also a bit greasy feeling and its got problems with toughness. Would anyone find them? I doubt it, but toolmaking to me is an ideal. It’s about trying to make something that people would prefer without having to think about it or be lobbied or convinced. O1 is OK. I want to get closer to 26c3. So I found W2 bar in 3/8″ and we’ll have another go at this pair of chisels and I’ll figure out what to do with the first two.

I kind of expected the chisel to be a little better technically and more awkward and useless feeling shape wise.

The good part of this is I’ve learned a few things that will help down the road, making forge welding a little bit easier. And I’ve got a couple of ideas of things to try when doing the bigger forge welds.

I’m aware that on bigger chisels like this, that I could create a physical step as a barrier for the bolster, but I don’t want compromises if they aren’t required.

I guess that means that instead of a final post when these are done (one is, the other will be the same), I’ll have a later post to see if W2 solves the problem.

What is W2?

W2 is just a water hardening steel – at least that which I’m buying – that is like 1095 with a little bit of vanadium added.

That itself is a funny thing. I got banned from bladeforums for talking about heat treating in a forge and refusing to agree that it was stupid, but rather wanted to talk about it further and get some other folks to try it with more of an eye on doing and testing (snapping samples, etc).

What led to that? I asked if there was a 1095 steel or a 1% carbon steel that was like drill rod but with some vanadium.

All of the answers were no. 80crv2 was one of the suggestions. Carbon V was another (the old sharon steel that was used in the many decades old camillus type knives that always seem to be so crisp and easy to sharpen). Nobody mentioned W2.

That place is just another forum, though, and I’m done with forums. You get stuck dealing with too many other peoples’ baggage, and ultimately create nothing positive in return – which is what I’d gotten to.