Railroad Spikes

[Griff]

Any of you knifemakers ever use a railroad spike to make a blade?

[Mescalero]

Not me, but I watched a blacksmith make one at a gun show.

[bdhold]

http://www.anvilfire.com/article.php?bo ... -spike.htm

they're medium-carbon steel and won't harden well

[Hagler]

Griff,

Not me, but my father-in-law bought this one, made by "D. Babin":

francis-sheath-for-railroad-spike-knife 1000.jpg

Shawn

[williamranks]

My grandfather drove steam trains back in Maine and the first diesel to ever come to the state.
He used to tell the story of a hobo who came into the roundhouse one day and asked to use the forge.
The hobo grabbed a spike out of the junk pile shaped it, tempered it, sharpened it and shaved with it.
Then he tossed it back into the pile and left.
Might be true or not. The men on that side of my family weren't known for truthfulness. Had an uncle who had to pay the neighbor's kid to call his dog.

[Sixgun]

Griff,
Funny that you brought that up. The only thing I ever used railroad spikes for were tent pegs in hard soil.

Your post brought up something I forgot. Back in 1994 I was using a metal detector in Promontory Point, Utah and I found a mess of stuff. One railroad spike was smaller than the others and has "Union Pacific Railroad" and the date "1869" stamped on it. After all these years, it's still bright and shiney. I'll probably just scrap it out.----6

[Ben_Rumson]

The first time it was all fun rolling out the rusty old tools of the trade to repair damaged track after a derailment at the mill I used to work at, not so much the second & third times.... One time I nearly died trying to beat the steam hammer...My wife Polly Ann helped me recover...

[Griff]

I have a stack of old ties in my back pasture... found a spike out in the pasture (musta dropped off when they were moved out there)... and picked up three more this morning...

Have always thought of making a knife out of the one I got... maybe I'll actually build me a forge now that I have a "few"...!

Sixgun, Those are commemorative spikes from the meeting of the railroads... actually handed out to the various dignitaries in attendance! It might actually be worth something! (NOT! I just made that up!)

[Chuck 100 yd]

Like bulldog1935 said, Low quality steel. If I am going to spend the time to make a knife,I don`t want to start with a poor piece of steel to begin with when scrap yards are full of high grade steel for scrap prices. Car springs make good knifes.

[DPris]

There are knifemakers who use spikes, but I've long heard the steel isn't the best for knifery.

Also pulling from the dim recesses of a very cluttered mind a distant memory of reading somewhere that not all spikes were created the same.
Something about a difference in steel between those used on certain heavy traffic main lines vs those used on lesser lines.
And I'm not talking about regular vs narrow gauge, or regular vs the smaller mining track spikes.

But, I can't guarantee the thought.
Giggle up a storm & see what you find?

I have a couple spikes I've brought back from expeditions, had considered getting them made into knives, but found it was not quite worth the money. Not all that practical.
Denis

[bdhold]

ok, not quite - railroad steel is always quality clean steel by railroad specifications, but it's not meant to be as hardenable as a knife blade needs to be - they're meant to be very tough and to weather well, but not meant to be very hard.
It has only about one-third the carbon as a typical tool steel. And if you stuck tool steel in weathering wooden ties, corrosion would eventually cause it to crack.
You can sharpen anything - you can cut yourself on a blade of grass, or a piece of paper, but hardness is what decides how long it will stay sharp.

[DPris]

Bronksknifeworks.com

Think this is where I got that from.
Denis

[Sixgun]

(NOT! I just made that up!)

Me too!

[Buck Elliott]

Yup.. Spikes are made to be tough, not particularly hard.. They take quite a beating from the flexing of the rails, and "work-hardening" could cause them to crack or shatter, expecially under the head..

[plowboy 45]

The ones marked HC are still to low carbon to make a good blade, but it can be done, and they will sell.

[Mescalero]

When I watched that blacksmith and his crew make that knife from a RR spike, he had a sign that said " I buy black sand "
Black sand is a by product of gold mining, something I have in abundance.
You Tube has an interesting video of this process, quite delicate in initiation; but apparently worth the trouble.

[92&94]

When I watched that blacksmith and his crew make that knife from a RR spike, he had a sign that said " I buy black sand "
Black sand is a by product of gold mining, something I have in abundance.
You Tube has an interesting video of this process, quite delicate in initiation; but apparently worth the trouble.

I knew a guy who taught a knife making class in Tucson, claimed to have made a blade from magnetite/hematite collected in a local wash. I only half believed him, but compared to some of the yarns in this thread I'll give that one a bit more weight

Knives made from spikes are a nice novelty, but not really a useful blade. Old files work well though, usually W1 or something similar.

[piller]

The amount of carbon in the steel will affect the ability to withstand stress and strain. More carbon makes it more rigid and less able to flex. More carbon makes it harder and allows it to hold an edge in use. Less carbon makes it less susceptible to rust. Low carbon steel will still rust, but not as fast as high carbon steel does. It has a lot to do with the chemical properties of carbon and oxygen. Railroad spikes are probably a little less hard than the typical hammer. If they are too hard, then they would chip and crack when being hammered in to the rail and tie. A better class of steel to make a knife from is spring steel from a car's leaf spring. The typical leaf spring, often called OCS (Old Chevy Steel), is 1095 steel (If memory serves) and is hardenable to 55 or better on the Rockwell C scale. At 55 or better, a good carbon steel will hold an edge for most purposes while still having enough flex to resist breakage. The higher you go above 57, then the harder the steel is and the more difficult it is to sharpen. Above 61 and it becomes brittle, but it can be sharpened to straight razor sharpness. The steel in knives is quenched to hold it in one shape as steel can be in body centered cubic, or face centered cubic molecular structure, but I don't remember which one is the one you need for a good knife. One of the 2 forms of steel is called martensitic steel.

[bdhold]

you're getting lost pillar,
knife blade steel is actually martensite, body-centered tetragonal, and a metastable (abnormal) crystal structure, which is what gives it the hardness (imperfections in the crystal structure can't move under strain).
Quenching (rapid cooling in oil or water) produces this metastable structure in the transformation from full annealing temperature (where iron is FCC austenite) to MS temperature, faster than the BCC (ferrite) transformation can take place. Increasing carbon raises the MS temperature improving the quench result. As-quenched martensite is brittle and the quenched steel is then tempered to lower the hardness and produce usable toughness.
Normalized (air-cooled) magnetic steel is BCC.
Face-centered cubic is austenite, which is nickel-copper crystal structure, stabilized in nonmagnetic stainless steel by addition of nickel and manganese.
FCC has by far the greatest number of slip systems (that let crystal imperfections move under strain), and this is the material that really work-hardens.
I'm a licensed professional engineer, and my field is metallurgy.

if the physics grabs you, this is not a bad primer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martensite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusionl ... sformation

[Rusty]

I was at a knife show once where a guy was selling knives made from spikes. They were oyster knives that didn't require great edge holding ability.

[Griff]

All I know, is that you can infuse steel with carbon, but you can't take it out. The only part that needs hardening is the edge... the rest is best if more pliable.

Piller, in English please. I think I got the gist of what you said... but the details are fuzzy!

[DPris]

Griff,
Pretty simple, but you have to remember to pass through the borogroves & turn left at the corner of Lewis & Carroll to get there.

Denis

[bdhold]

sorry griff, it takes 1700 degrees to add carbon to steel - all you need is a carburizing atmosphere.
At the same temperature in an oxidizing atmosphere, you remove carbon from steel.

I really don't think this thing is on.

[Gobblerforge]

I was thinking that most spring steels are in the 4140 range.
I am not a metallurgist, just a blacksmith, but the spike knives I have seen others make did seem like they would work for a while but would need sharpening more often.
Gobbler

[Griff]

I was thinking that most spring steels are in the 4140 range.
I am not a metallurgist, just a blacksmith, but the spike knives I have seen others make did seem like they would work for a while but would need sharpening more often.
Gobbler

Me too, but my "plan" was to add boron to the blade, much as I'd add boron crystals to a horseshoe to improve its grip & wearability on asphalt surfaces. I'm not sure I can get plain boron rod, or if I can, will get it hot enough in my forge (when I make one), but... ain't planning 99% of the fun?

[piller]

The different steels use a numbering system that tells what content of carbon is in the steel, and what other metals are added. Thanks Bulldog for pulling me back from the edge of the cliff. I know some, but certainly not as much as an engineer. Griff, steel will change its molecular shape depending on temperature and elements added into it. Take 3 or 4 big round styrofoam balls, and several smaller ones, use toothpicks to hold them together. Now, make the smaller balls hold the bigger balls in sort of a box structure. That is body centered cubic. If you have several of these stuck together with toothpicks, it will flex a little and still retain its shape. Face Centered Cubic is where you take the smaller balls and hold them together with longer sticks to form a square frame, then place the bigger balls into the sides of this frame to where several of them touch in the center of the frame, but the bigger balls don't go all the way in. This type of framework is harder, but is more easily broken as it has less give to it. Different materials added into the steel, such as Chromium, will act as if you fit smaller, or, in some cases, medium sized, balls into the mix with more toothpicks sticking out of them. They can stabilize the structure, or change the way it acts because of the extra bonds which are represented by the toothpicks. Now we are really getting to the doorstep of where Bulldog's knowledge starts. I only had to take two college level physics classes. Bulldog has had to take way more than that.

[Griff]

I failed Chemistry, like all good instructors, he started me out with a 'A'... and I worked hard to drop that all the way to an 'F'! I know the report card shows a 'C'... but the instructor was kind enough to say that, "... anyone who knows when to quit, is smart enough to get a 'C'. " Physics... I can still do 10+ pushups...

[Hawkeye2]

Bill, a distant relative of mine, A. C. (Archie) Towle was at the throttle of the 470 when steam pulled it's last passenger train on the Maine Central. No doubt he knew your grandfather.

[williamranks]

Bill, a distant relative of mine, A. C. (Archie) Towle was at the throttle of the 470 when steam pulled it's last passenger train on the Maine Central. No doubt he knew your grandfather.

See if he remembers Willard F. Ranks. I think he worked out of Northern Maine Junction for the MC.
I'm also related to the Cain brothers of Masardis, ME. I think they worked for the Bangor and Aroostook.

[Hawkeye2]

Bill I wish I could ask him but he passed away in the late 50's or very early 60's.