Hook tools

Morning Jesse,

Another way to make 'hook tools' is to grind flat stock or tool bits etc. to shapes that are basically hooks. I like the shape of the 'Viking' for end grain. It is robust, doesn't pack the shavings and it's easy to grind & sharpen. Look in catalogs or Soren Berger's website for a pic. I think it is essentially a hook tool. A grinder and a few tool bits and you have a set up for experimenting.

Hope I'm not too far off topic. You might really just want to fire up your forge, but be careful. Someone will accuse you of inconveniently warming the globe. :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Hi Prometheus

I don't think there is a real advantage of one over the other, in my mind the hammer to a wedge shape, and fold to a hook ( just like Darrell shows) is the simpler way to go, it might just be a wee bit harder controlling the tempering of the thin edge. And yes mind Arch's advice of heating up the earth, must have been those Vikings making all those swords and axes when they where farming on Greenland, as they sure didn't have any SUV's ;-))), then again shorter winters wouldn't make me feel bad.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

Well, even though I had said "forge" when talking about the fully round "hook" (more of an eye, really), it would seem to me that the easiest way to do it would be grind it about 90% and then heat-treat it with the forge. I don't know if that's "smart" or "lazy", but I always like to go with the easiest option. Grinding a true hook shape might be a different story, and I think I can forge that much more easily than it can be ground.

No doubt, but those people tend to get nervous about confronting a big guy with a four pound hammer in his hand, I think... At least, no one has tried to stop me yet. :)

It'd be a little different than what Darrell shows, but that's just because of the material I've got. Rather than using a nail to make the hook in a couple of minutes, I've got 1" x 3/8" thick 1095, which means it'd be about 3-4 hours of drawing out with a hand hammer. Not that I won't do it, and it would be fairly "simple"- but it will be extremely labour intensive!

The nice thing about that heavy bar stock is that it's not going to want to bend with deep hollowing- something I end up fighting when I use mild steel shanks as tool handles. I'm also thinking that the rectangular shaft would be great for finding and maintaining the right tool angle. I can twist the hook before hardening (it will still cut unhardened, just won't hold an edge very long) and then there's not a lot of fussing around with it to get the right angle- it'll just sit flat on the toolrest. Sort of like the hollowing tool designs with a second bar on them to keep them level, without any welding.

They might not have had SUVs, but they *did* have those big ships. Just think of all the trees they had to cut down for that... now that would have been a fine wood scrounging opportunity for a resourceful turner!

Arch and Leo V.--Little sarcastic remarks about global warming may make you feel superior, but, like it or not, this is a serious problem. I can remember when people were joking about smoking (e.g. Mice that smoke shouldn't drive.)--many of them are dead now of lung cancer.

Sorry if I come across as a sourpuss-heavy, but global warming is a VERY INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

I have a friend who turns a LOT of Norwiegan ale bowls (2 or 3 a day at the MN state fair every year, for instance)with a spring pole lathe and he uses mostly hook tools. He is emulating 1600's and 1700's usually, so he uses only 1095 for tools (since that's what would have been available). He forges out the Hook on the end of a roughly 1/2" round bar about 15 inches long and fits a handle that is another 15 to 24 inches long. He does fully harden them and temper them back to medium straw, but they do require a fair amount of sharpening ( a quick stoning). We full hardened one without tempering once, and it stayed sharp a long time, until it broke when it caught one day. He demonstrates before the public often and gives classes, too.

I'd favor forging over grinding. You only need to work the last couple of inches of stock, so it shouldn't take more than a half dozen heats to draw it down. Come on over and use a power hammer if you want. (If I can ever find the forge again). I think I have a bunch of 1/2" round

1095 to save you some time.

Pete Stanaitis

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Prometheus wrote:

I've made a number of hook tools using Darrell's method and I've found they work extremely well. I've actually made some from 3" and larger concrete nails so I could tackle larger jobs. I also made the steel handles from larger diameter stock to allow me deep cutting without chatter. This also works very well. I use a dremel and a conical grinding stone similar to one used for the 'termite'. It was fun; the forging part remided me of my highschool days!

Tom

Leo, I am not an advocate of the modern day scare tactics on GLOBAL WARMING that are being used. In my short lifespan (60+ years) I remember spans of years that were hot and dry and other spans that were cold and wet. Weather is cyclic and has always been so regardless of what man has done. Man probably will destroy himself, but don't blame it on nature. I believe that "nature" doesn't even know that Man exists, let alone that he is influencing the environment. Yes, global warning "IS" a very inconvenient truth, but there is nothing we can do about it. So - LIVE LIFE AND ENJOY!

Hi Pete I don't know if I would call that old puddle steel 1095 or even high carbon, I've worked and welded some of that old iron and steel, and it was altogether other material, I remember rod welding some iron gate from a castle, the stuff looked like bundled wire when it was melting in the arc, not nice stuff to work with in that sense. I also remember My Dad telling me that early in his life when he had to forge weld pieces together, he said " you could take the iron out of the fire and pick up the hammer from the floor and still weld it together, but now, if you are not ready and real quick you're to late", also steel was expensive, they would use only small pieces and lay them in, like on a shovel or axe or other tools.

But yes I have the same experience with hardening and not tempering, it works much better and in that it stays sharp longer, haven't broken any yet but I do expect that to happen though, I'm willing to pay the price.

What kind of a power hammer do you have ?? We had one with a 3 foot cast flywheel on a crank with an adjustable rod, connected to a rocking stack of leaf springs that was moving the hammer shaft up and down, and all that was connected to a riveted steel plate body that was filled with concrete I think, not sure of that anymore, it was an antique alright but worked just fine when needed. Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

He is emulating 1600's and 1700's usually,

Hi Other Leo

Over the millennia the earth has cycled through ice ages and hot periods without the help of Mankind, even as close as a thousand years ago we had a hot spell that lasted for a long time in human terms. Also Mars has heated up in the last century, wonder who's doing it up there ??????? So I'm not saying temperatures are not rising, just that we are not the cause IMO, but politicians are sure to use it for their own agendas. Just as we have had those that are predicting the end of the world or those that were profiting from scaring the daylight out of people when the year 2000 was coming around, the millennium scare was used for the same reasons.

And I'm not going to discuss this, this is my opinion, and I stand by that, even if I am out a few years with my stated claims.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

I think we are talking pre-puddling here for my friend's stuff. When you make wrought iron in the old one-step process, you sometimes get chucks of bloom that sat around the fuel (charcoal) for longer than the rest and so became higher in carbon. The workers learned to spot those pieces when pulling the bloom out or later when consolidating it; separating it from the rest for use in tool edges. I'm not exactly sure when Wootz steel or blister steel was developed, but those are some other earlier ways of getting the carbon content up.

There's a guy in England who makes $50,000 suits of reproduction armor who claims that, in the 1500's (his period of emulation) they could produce 1060 reliably.

I know this is a woodturning group, but you all have to use steel and steel alloy tools, so, FYI----- Iron + Carbon = Steel. (Also "Steel" includes Iron plus a lot of other alloys these days). Pure iron would have NO carbon. Real "Wrought Iron" has (usually) less than 0.1 % carbon. Today's "mild steel" (the stuff you'd get if you went to a steel yard and asked for a "piece of steel for a backyard project" probably has a carbon content of between 0.18 % and 0.30%. This is generally considered too low a carbon content to harden. When the carbon content gets to about 0.45%, you have a steel that can be hardened (made brittle) by heating to a red heat and then quenching in water or oil)--- and then reheated to a lower temperature (tempering) to get rid of some of the brittleness. The steel we have been talking about here is called "1095". The "10" means it's a plain "Carbon Steel", containing iron, carbon, and hardly anything else. The "95" means is has a carbon content of 0.95%. That's pretty high for steel. Just to carry this carbon thing to a conclusion, if the carbon content goes much above 1.5% to 2 or 3 %, you get cast iron, which can't be forged by normal processes.

I have a Little Giant 50 pound hammer in my shop and seven or eight more in a shed.

This one might have been called a "Helve Hammer". I assume it was powered by some mechanical means? Was it shop-made or a commercially available hammer? In America's history, there were dozens, if not scores of manufacturers of steel-hammering devices. It is interesting to see the breadth of ideas that actually made it to the field.

Pete Stanaitis

Even though a lot of guys like the newer tool steel alloys (and I'll admit, I do too- for hogging things out,) I actually kind of prefer the 1095- old fashioned or not, I haven't found anything that takes a keener edge. It just doesn't stick around as long.

I might take you up on that- my wife came up with a "let's just rearrange every single thing in the house quick" idea this weekend, and I never got out to the forge.

How did that work? My understanding of the process (and it's from a modern perspective, so the old way may not have been mentioned) was that the first melt from the ore was used to make pig-iron ignots, the second refining melt poured cast iron, and then it had to be "cooked" with an oxidizing flame for quite a while when in the molten state in the third heat to burn out the excess carbon to make steel. Though after typing that, I can see that there must be another method, or carbon steel would have been around long before wrought iron.

IIRC, the initial high-levels of carbon came from melting in the cupola with coke and iron ore mixed together, and the refining heat was done in a ladle.

They may have been able to, depending on how much they cared- but that sounds a little fishy. The technology may have been there- especially in large batches where several tons of wrought iron could have had an easily measurable amount of carbon (maybe as coke?) added to it to get something sort of like 1060, but I doubt that was very common at all.

It's kind of like those dark age re-enactors that claim that patching up their armor with duct-tape is historically accurate because "they had it back then." When I questioned a guy about that statement, he made up some nonsense about woven reeds and mud. Might have been sort of like tape, but it certainly wasn't modern duct tape.

Ah well, as long as they're having fun- but it would do some of those folks good to take their rationalizations a little less seriously. I don't hear too many turners claiming that wares turned out on a Oneway are historically authentic because someone could have hooked a belt to a waterwheel and had a powered drive system.

I thought this article was interesting:

I have made a bunch with different materials. All of mine are made to be inserted into the end of a very heavy wall tube (gun barrel stock, I think) and held in place with a set screw.

I find it is easiest to get the edge and shape you want by first hammering the steel flat (triangular cross section, really, cool slowly, then sharpen so you essentially have a knife. (like it's described on Darrel's site). Making the cross section a pretty wide triangle at the bottom gives it a lot more beef for heavy cuts. Thin cross sections are more likely to have high pitched squeals when turning, which not only require earplugs, but are hard on the tool (vibration---->high cycle fatigue).

Then heat it up again and bend the knife into a hook. If you are not careful to do this when it's very hot, you can crack the edge while bending, and then you might as well toss it out and start over, as a crack is almost impossible to fix, and the only way to cure is a full penetration weld or grind it off completely.

Once it's bent, you can then heat, quench and temper and your edge should only need a little more honing to make it sharp again (or if you ground it well before bending, you might be able to use it as is for a bit).

I have tried a few materials: Nails work OK, but being round cross section you need to grind a flat on one side for a set screw to hold it well. I don't prefer them, as I mostly have galvanized nails, and have found other materials I like more.

Old drills are nice and hard, but untwisting them takes a while , and they're made from very hard alloy, so are harder to forge without cracking. As another poster said, "if you're not ready, you're too late"

I have made all the tools I still use from old allen wrenches, which works nicely for a couple reasons: no untwisting, reasonably hard material (but not always), easy to come by, the 90 bend allows you to make offset tools for bent tool work up inside wide, small mouthed vessels. I also prefer hooks with a bend for hogging out lots of material in the bottoms of large bowls. Translating 'catches' into a torque instead of a whole tool handle 'flip' is a lot safer, especially when you have 30 or 40 inch dia hunk of wood spinning mere feet from your head.

I've tried both left and right handed hooks. I mostly prefer hooks that have a left jog, then a right hook, but since I turn in both directions outboard, the right jog and left hook can be useful too.

Certain hooks are nice for bottom nub turning. You can see pictures and a movie here:

Mine is the same as yours... I don't think it worked that way. Wootz is also very old, pre 1000 AD

Hello Pete: You are right. The more you understand your tools the better equipped you are to use them. I now understand this rating but how does say a

1095 relate if at all to say the A2, C2, M2 ratings you see for steel and steel tools.

Regards Paul Gev> I know this is a woodturning group, but you all have to use steel and

My understanding is that 1095 is also known as W1. The letter in tool steel alloys, in many cases refers to the method by which it can be hardened. So, in the case of 1095, it would be water-hardening tool steel, type one. With A2, it would be air-hardening tool steel type two. O class steels are for oil hardening, S class tool steels are shock resisting, and there are classifications for work hardening and heat resistant tool steels which I cannot remember offhand.

In all cases, with the exception of the 1095, tool steels are steel alloys that contain other elements to give them more desirable properties. Generally, the alloys are crafted with three properties in mind- Hardness, toughness, and wear-resistance. Hardness is usually, but not always a function of a higher level of carbon in the alloy, toughness is generally a function of chromium and molybdenum, and (IIRC) wear resistance is usually boosted by tungsten. There are other elements that can be added to the alloys for various other properies as well, but you'd have to be a pretty sharp metallurgist to know them all, and be able to figure out the effect of each minor element on the others in combination.

It's a precise balancing act with most alloys- if you increase hardness, toughness (the resistance to chipping or breakage) will generally be compromised, but you'll be able to achieve a keener edge. An increase in toughness usually comes with a decrease in hardness, which is what you're shooting for when tempering a hardened carbon steel tool. I honestly don't know that much about wear-resistance, but it must affect the first two factors, or *every* tool steel would be alloyed to make them as wear-resistant as possible.

The thing that is appealing about W1(1095), A1, and O1 tool steels, is that it's possible to heat treat them at home with limited equipment- that isn't to say you'll get absolutely perfect results, but they're all pretty good materials, and you can easily make good tools with them. With something like M2, you really need to have a precisely controlled heat-treating oven whose temperature can be accurated graduated in at least 25 degree increments (preferably on a timer, as many tool steels require 24-48 hour heat treating cycles that involve a combination of long soaks and slow step-downs in temperature.)

(Disclaimer- Any of the above may be incorrect, of course. This is just what I've dug up on the subject out of general curiosity- I don't have the setup to play with smelting special alloys, and have never had the opportunity to do it, so it's more for general knowledge than anything else- while I've machined a whole lot of tool steel in the past, in practice, all a guy actually needs to know on the shop floor is what the print calls for, and what feed and speed rates to use for any given operation with that material.)

Paul, google for AISI (American Iron and Steel Institute) and for "Machinery's Handbook". Buy the handbook -- it's well worth the admittedly steep price of admission.

This will give you a better education on this top than a 2,000 response thread on this wonderful newsgroup.

Prometheus did a fine job ... but he barely scratched the surface.

There is a LOT to learn here.

Bill