HC railroad spikes

[jdlange]

I have come across a supply of railroad spikes and was wondering if you guys could verify their compostion for me, they are all in very good shape (very little rust, some still have the original protective coating) and are all marked on the top with an "HC S", I am assuming these are all high carbon steel suitable for use in making spike knives which I would very much like to do, I am hoping I am right on these as the quantity I have found is quite large and it would keep me in supply for a long time. Just want to make sure before I buy them.

[Bob Warner]

There a re mixed emoitions on this topic. some say the HC stands for High Carbon, other say it is for something else. Talk the seller into letting you buy ONE and take it home and make a rough knife. Heat treat it and see if it performs. Does it get hard? Is it still soft? Mess with it and then decide if buying is right.

I would like to tell you that they are but I have been wrong before.

[jdlange]

Thanks Bob,

Does anyone else have any experience using these railroad spikes that was successful that would like to supply an opinion, I'm sure I can just ask for a few from this person and he would give them to me free of charge to test, he has a lot, I mean 100's it looks like.

[fitzo]

read this thread:
http://www.ckdforums.com/showthread....e&pagenumber=1

[jdlange]

Thanks, this helps a great deal. I had no plans of making swords out of thiese things just some interesting little novelties so if the info here is correct then they should work out just fine, a carbon content of .35 would be enough to get it hard enough to stand a little abuse but not much. This is great info, I even read an item on another board thar described the different letters after the hc as different types of steel (w=water hardenable o=oil etc..) obviously that is not quite correct hehe.

Thanks

[jdlange]

Just a side note, I was at a knife show here in PA over the weekend and looked at a couple spike knives at a stand, I questioned the fellow about the steel and he told me it was high carbon, the blades seemed quite hard but without a reasonable way of testing that I have no real idea, that's why I started the thread. I think I will pick up at least some of these for doing a bit o work for pocket money in between jobs for the time being. Thanks for all the help.

[PMSKnife]

I have a 24" tall bucket full of these. A friend of mine owns a kaboose and has it stored at an old RR station here in NJ. He tole me to take as many as I wanted...so I did!! ha

Anyway,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I have made 3 or 4 novelty knives from these and they did get hard. They are not abused nor did I do an abuse test on one yet. I knew the one's that I was making would be used as letter openers and such...So I didn't go the "Abuse test" route.

MArk