Punching

Same drawing, different activity over the top. I had my first go at punching a hole through hot metal today. I was still preoccupied with translation so it seemed more productive to spend the little time I had down in the shop on tool making for the future than mooning about thinking of what to do next. I was punching a hole in a cold chisel to make a slot punch with a handle to use on the press. Basically making something like the head of a hammer with a really pointy nose. Some success, it seemed like drilling a pilot hole would be a good way to get an accurate slot right through so I heated another chisel up to a nice yellow and popped that in a bucket of sand to anneal. It drilled OK later in the day. I guess it is obvious, but to state the obvious, you can't expect to drill a hole in a piece of tempered steel with a drill made of the same thing. Like trying to spread butter with a knife made of butter. You anneal (soften) steel by heating and cooling it slowly. You have to heat it beyond the point where it will attract a magnet. If you do the same and quench it you make it very hard and brittle. To get a tool of the temper you want you then reheat the steel GENTLY after polishing the area you are most interested in and watch the colors change until you get the one you want. Basically the more heat the more toughness and less brittleness. Once you get your color, quench again to fix that quality of stress in the metal. It is fun to fiddle with all these properties of materials and use them to get something that works for you. It is very hard for me to fully grasp the potential uses of materials without a bit of fiddling as the very process of working them gives rise to different ideas.
If you want to know more about this kind of stuff I heartily recommend these two books:-
Tool making for woodworkers by Ray Larsen
The Artist Blacksmith by Peter Parkinson