Coin making?
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Coin making? new_CFI 11-14-2006
Posted by new_CFI on November 19, 2006, 8:05 pm
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@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com:

> Well check this out then....I can make a chisel out of scrap low carbon
> steel then quench it in super quench and use the chisel to cut the rest
> of the remaining rod up into lengths...amazing stuff...do a search
> online for the recipe. Remember I said that it just had to be harder
> than the blank. Try the quench it's outstanding!
>

I don't have much experience as a blacksmith other than metal shop from
high school years ago. My concern with heating the piece is that any small
details where the mettle is a bit thin will be burnt off or disfigured. I
suppose allowing the heat to spread down from the back would be better.

I could be thinking a quench requires it to be hotter than it needs to be.

All of your input has been appreciated.

Posted by Charly the Bastard on November 26, 2006, 8:33 am
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new_CFI wrote:

> @m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Well check this out then....I can make a chisel out of scrap low carbon
> > steel then quench it in super quench and use the chisel to cut the rest
> > of the remaining rod up into lengths...amazing stuff...do a search
> > online for the recipe. Remember I said that it just had to be harder
> > than the blank. Try the quench it's outstanding!
> >
>
> I don't have much experience as a blacksmith other than metal shop from
> high school years ago. My concern with heating the piece is that any small
> details where the mettle is a bit thin will be burnt off or disfigured. I
> suppose allowing the heat to spread down from the back would be better.
>
> I could be thinking a quench requires it to be hotter than it needs to be.
>
> All of your input has been appreciated.

It depends on just what you're using to heat the work. A cutting torch might
fry some of the small details if you hold the flame in one spot for too long,
seeing as how the flame temp is around 6000 degrees. But a gentle heat in a
slow fire is no problem. Quenching usually happens around 1600 degrees (bright
cherry red) for most carbon steels, so the likelyhood of losing details is not
that great. Probably the biggest risk is picking the die up on the wrong
surface and squishing the face with the tongs. Final hardness is a combination
of factors; the specific alloy of the work, the quenching medium, the
temperature of the work, the temperature of the medium, the physical speed of
the quench. Some steels don't like water or brine as a quenchant. Most steels
will quench in oil. Please, no automotive products. Engine oil, tranny fluid,
et al, contain metallic soaps to control foaming and these can contaminate the
work at temperature. Mineral or vegetable oils work quite well, and there are
lots of commercial quenchants on the market cheap. If you're not sure what's in
your steel, go with oil. It might miss 'full hard' by a few points of Rockwell,
but you won't get tensile cracks from too fast a quench. Probably more than any
other factor, carbon content in the steel determines just how hard it will get.
More carbon, harder finished piece, up to a point. Any steel with at least
0.50% carbon will make a good die and harden up into the Rockwell C '50' range.
For comparison, a Nicholson file is a Rockwell C 63 hardness, +/- a tenth of a
point. In a dieset, hardness equates to longer tool life before the detail is
deformed away. (Yeah, every stroke deforms the die a little bit, there's no
such animal as the immovable object.) A good hard steel die against a soft
metal like copper or silver or gold should give thousands of impressions before
it gets worn out, so you should get your money's worth out of all that work.

Charly



Posted by Andy Dingley on November 24, 2006, 6:50 pm
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new_CFI wrote:
> Ive looked on google and at the library but cant seem to find any info on
> striking coins, other than modern methods.

Try uk.rec.engines.stationary (seriously!)

UK re-enactors do this fairly commonly. You shell out =A3300 to the
bloke who makes the punches, then after that you're banging them out
for =A30.50 - =A31.00 at the fairs. Use a sheet of pewter or silver,
roughly snip it with shears, coin the impression with your dies, then
trim it neatly,.

If you're serious, make your own dies. Painstaking work, but simple
enough in principle.


Posted by Ken Rose on November 27, 2006, 3:44 pm
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new_CFI wrote:
> Ive looked on google and at the library but cant seem to find any info on
> striking coins, other than modern methods. I saw a guy making site tokens
> at an sca event once striking blanks. Im looking for a website or a book
> that might tell how to do all of this. Making the punch or die ( what ever
> its called ) seems like it would be the hard part. Is it even something a
> beginer could do? or am I trying to start out at to complex of a level?

I saw some guys striking coins at a renaissance fair many years ago.
They used a rig like a guillotine with a weight the size of a bowling
ball (though I don't know how much it weighed) dropping about 4 feet or
so. The lower die was fixed to the base, and the upper to the weight.
That way they got a nice, uniform strike every time. ISTR that they got
a good coin from nearly every drop.

- ken

Posted by Martin H. Eastburn on November 27, 2006, 9:37 pm
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Myself, I think I would make two funnel shaped focusing irons.
At the small diameter sits the die. The metal between and the top die placed
with the top iron on - then I would smack the top die with the cannon ball...

Its massive weight is applied to the large face and it is then 'transformed'
or 'focused' down to the much smaller die and like hydrolics(sp), the pressure
is ratio'd upwards .

Remember - pressure can melt or weld your die to the blank, but that seems
to be at a higher level than most can generate easily.

Martin

Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
NRA LOH & Endowment Member
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member
http://lufkinced.com/



Ken Rose wrote:
> new_CFI wrote:
>
>>Ive looked on google and at the library but cant seem to find any info on
>>striking coins, other than modern methods. I saw a guy making site tokens
>>at an sca event once striking blanks. Im looking for a website or a book
>>that might tell how to do all of this. Making the punch or die ( what ever
>>its called ) seems like it would be the hard part. Is it even something a
>>beginer could do? or am I trying to start out at to complex of a level?
>
>
> I saw some guys striking coins at a renaissance fair many years ago.
> They used a rig like a guillotine with a weight the size of a bowling
> ball (though I don't know how much it weighed) dropping about 4 feet or
> so. The lower die was fixed to the base, and the upper to the weight.
> That way they got a nice, uniform strike every time. ISTR that they got
> a good coin from nearly every drop.
>
> - ken

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