Originally Posted By: dougwalkabout
In terms of their metallurgy, my understanding is that spikes are pretty low carbon. That makes sense; you wouldn't want one to fracture the rail while pounding or snap off during stress or cold and leave a rail loose. Blacksmiths like to play with them as "found materials" but they have the means to work more carbon into the steel to make a passable cutting edge.


The regular ones are about only 0.1% carbon, the ones labeled HC goes up to 0.3% or so, both too low to be hardened properly for anything with an edge. I've seen a few tomahawks made with them but they have piece of 1095 inserted for edge.

I have a few lying around, wish I had a forge to make something out of them, 1095 is pretty cheap to buy.


Edited by jzmtl (06/29/11 05:00 AM)