Ox Wagon Axle

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Antman

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Hi Guys,
Recently a young farmer was showing some interest in my machining so I gave him a tour of my workshop and (tactfully) asked him if he had some scrap iron laying around on the farm. I was hoping to get some flat stock. Some ploughs have a nice 65mm square bar that the individual shares bolt on to.
Well he pitched up the other day with the gift of an ox wagon axle in his bakkie (SA speak for a small truck, usually one-tonners). Most of it is flat, about 45mmX70mm, at each end before the tapers it widens out to about 70mm square. It looks to be hammer forged. In one of the old books the author says it would be well for the machinist to learn how to forge his stock to rough size to save on steel. It will probably machine quite nicely. Am I gonna mutilate an antique bit of iron?
Ant
 
You're going to machine hammer-forged steel? :eek:
Let us know how you get on,it should be entertaining :big:
 
Antique Iron - probably full of inclusions.

Perhaps you can find someone who wants to restore an oxcart about to make one from solid - I presume he would gladly donate the stock for the real thing.

I'm always loath to plow into vintage bits as there is almost certainly some poor SOB out there looking for that very thing - the trick of course is to locate said SOB.

Regards,
Ken
 
I have a bit of true wrought iron in my collection and yes it has slag inclusions however it is fine for most things that steel would be used for.

Wrought iron is more corrosion resistant that steel by a long shot. I have several 1" square bars that were part of a boat house in a wet environment for well over 50 years. They have a heavy rust surface but good iron is below that surface. I have no idea what these did before the boathouse but the bit of rail I got from there was from a RR line that was pulled out in 1928 and it is also in nice shape.

The bit of iron might have had a use before the ox cart axle.

Free metal one of my favorite sources.

My current project is cutting an old hand vise to make a miniature blacksmith vise. I am making a new screw to replace the wing nut. I chose a small forged chain link that I had straightened and machined to round stock to make the screw.

I like to use old iron for special projects.

Dan

 
How about a bit of metalurgical history.

Our forefathers couldn't make steel or even iron for that matter - its melting point is (or was) too high - cast iron on the other hand melts at about 980°C - the carbon is part of the material eutectic its not an unfortunate inclusion.

So our early sword makers and smithys discovered that by folding and hammering a piece of cast iron over and over again they could turn it into steel.

Hence the iron was "wrought".

With each forging the surface becomes scaled - this scale Fe3O4 & Fe2O3 when reintroduced to the forging reacts with the carbon to form CO2 and Iron - the CO2 outgasses and the carbon content of the "steel" is reduced with each forging.

The trick was to know when to stop - a smithy would periodically quench the piece he was working on to test if it hardened (and how hard) by stroking it with a file.

Carry on long enough and you end up with mallable iron - keep on further and all you will accomplish is layers of inclusions - there being insufficient carbon to react with the oxide scale.

Sword makers would typically produce two grades, one hard and brittle and one tough - they would then forge them together and with a few more foldings became the clasic basis for Toledo and Samurai swords.

An intermediate stage before the Bessemer converter gave us access to cheap steel was the process of "puddling" hence "puddled iron" - a hearth was created behind the blast furnace over which the hot exhaust gasses flowed - a puddle of iron was poured and then workers added all the scale they could scour from around the mill, raking it into the cast iron - the job of puddler was highly skilled.
Eventually the puddle would start to take on the consistency of hot toffee (its melting point constantly rising as the carbon was removed) at which point it was raked out into ingots.

The layering of wrought iron can be seen in badly corroded pieces as looking like flaky pastry.

There endeth the history lesson.
 
Ken yes the puddling process was the mot common process for wrought iron however a much more controlled process was invented by James Aston. The firm was the A.M. Byers Compamy 1930-1969.
http://www.bchistory.org/beavercounty/BeaverCountyTopical/Industry/AMByersCo/AMByersMSP84.html

They produced a book titled Wrought Iron Its Manufacture Characteristics and Applications it is a very good source of historic wrought iron use including alloy content. Several historic sites are included in the table, I have never checked to see if any still exist. It has a very good history of iron and steel and an explanation of the process they use. They must have printed a bunch of these because they can be found cheep. It is a really good book. A search found several copies in the $3 and under range.

Here is another source of wrought iron history. They are recycling scrap to make wrought iron available to restorers of historic locations. http://www.realwroughtiron.com/about_wrought_iron-203.html

Dan
 
Dan, thanks for that - can't wait for the *.pdf to come out from the guys at realwroughtiron.

Ken
 
Hey Guys,
I over guesstimated on the dimensions, but I wasn’t about to go out in the -4deg C night to the storeroom with a torch. So I had a better look at it yesterday morning. It’s 63mm X 29mm for most of its length and for 6 inches on either end goes up to 63mm square. And it seems to be a mass produced item, the sides are quite flat and the edges quite square. Now it may not be a piece of non PC history in SA, how the Settlers got to the hinterland. I suppose they could eat some of their motive power if game was scarce. I s’pose after the first cut, chopping up an antique won’t matter too much. Maybe I’ll just file one of the ends and see how it feels and what it looks like.
Steve, one project I have in mind for a piece cut from where the section changes, is a mount between a frame cutter and my not so QCTP. Planning for the machining it seems like this may be the first opportunity I get to use the faceplate.
Dan, I also dig free metal. Made a nice cutoff blade holder in the shaper, also a versatile shaper tool holder out of Merc Benz V8 crank counter-weights. My toolpost pillar is from Nissan lorry half-shaft.
Ken and Dan, I think my axle might be early 20th century and thanks for the tutorial. Here in SA restoration is not a big thing, anyway it would be the woodwork not the iron that needed fixing. The few steam engines that still run are not well turned out. We still had big steam all on 3’6” gauge until the late 60’s.
I’ve been battling with my second project of internal threading. First time, 1mm pitch ok, this one 1.5mm other story.
Cheers,
Ant.
 
Ant, that axle sounds very much like the ones we had here in New Zealand. We had quite a few on the farm and most are still in service but nowadays their function is to stay fence posts at the end of wire fences!
 
Ant,

For what most of us do on here, if you can cut it, it will most probably do the job.

Most of the time, I have no idea what I have in my material piles, so it is a matter of guesstimation what I am making something out of, if it is say steel, you can usually get a rough idea of what it is.

It is only when you come to do specialist parts, like camshafts etc that you really need to worry about what you are making it out of, and even then, you can sometimes get away with a bit of what I call 'rough stuff'.

Each piece of metal has something inside it waiting to be discovered, so just cut it up and use it for whatever job you think it is right for.

John

 

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