Last year a fellow ODT member - Stuckon 22 -gifted me with a large basket of used and broken tools that had belonged to his father. His hope was that they would not be wasted. Well, not being one to waste much of anything, I have slowly been getting these distributed. I have several promising students that I felt would benefit from the tools so I made up "Challenge" bundles. They were given the bundles with the instructions to use the good ones as designed and to forge something useful from the broken ones.
As usual they wanted an example. This was an old broken Irwin driver from the collection. It sports an 8" blade (12.5" OAL), wrought iron fittings and chunk of old shovel handle. I intend to post pics of what my students come up with as they report on their projects so stay tuned. May be awhile as we are meeting mostly virtually time being what it is.
Another ODT'r - Jackspack - brought me an assorted box of old wrenches recently. Somewhat same scenario, that I plan to distribute in like manner. Currently working on some examples for the students with these and will post examples later when complete.
Please understand most of the steels in these tools are really not considered hi-carbon knife worthy steels. Pretty much just a shade above mid range carbon. However, with the use of "super quench", one can get them serviceable hard for general use. As with anything, there are exceptions and surprises that the students will have to evaluate and overcome.
All part of the challenge to learn more about steels for the budding maker. Ask me if I'm having fun ..... heck yeah. Love seeing my guys learning.
As usual they wanted an example. This was an old broken Irwin driver from the collection. It sports an 8" blade (12.5" OAL), wrought iron fittings and chunk of old shovel handle. I intend to post pics of what my students come up with as they report on their projects so stay tuned. May be awhile as we are meeting mostly virtually time being what it is.
Another ODT'r - Jackspack - brought me an assorted box of old wrenches recently. Somewhat same scenario, that I plan to distribute in like manner. Currently working on some examples for the students with these and will post examples later when complete.
Please understand most of the steels in these tools are really not considered hi-carbon knife worthy steels. Pretty much just a shade above mid range carbon. However, with the use of "super quench", one can get them serviceable hard for general use. As with anything, there are exceptions and surprises that the students will have to evaluate and overcome.
All part of the challenge to learn more about steels for the budding maker. Ask me if I'm having fun ..... heck yeah. Love seeing my guys learning.
