PSA: I keep seeing people use a cold chisel on high carbon steel without annealing first

I was at a meet in Knoxville last month and watched three different smiths try to cut a piece of 1095 with a cold chisel, only to have it skate off or chip the edge. They were all surprised when I told them to heat the steel to a dull red and let it cool in the forge ashes first. How many of you actually anneal before doing any major cutting or shaping on hard stock?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamiesingh3mo ago

Yeah, that's basic shop practice, right? You'd think folks working with 1095 would know it's basically glass until you soften it up.

noah_barnes1mo ago

Man yeah @jamiesingh is dead on about that. I've snapped more 1095 blades than I care to count before I figured out that you gotta normalize it a few times before you even think about grinding. What worked for me was doing a quick stress relief cycle in the forge first - just bring it up to non-magnetic and let it cool slow in vermiculite. Takes like an extra hour but saves you from that heartbreak when your perfectly shaped blank cracks on the last pass.

jessicaw543mo ago

You ever try just hitting it with a torch for a minute to take the edge off first?