Very Rare Spark Testing Book

AdamPrince2 · Dec 3, 2021

I have provided a link to the very rare spark testing book that it out of copy right due to non renewal of rights and age. The book is called The Spark Atlas by Gerhart Tschorn 1963. Maybe someone can cleanup the pdf. I have an antique hammer that I am trying to identify the steel so I can weld a large chip. The spark pattern looks very bright and full of star bursts and sprigs. I compared it to cold rolled. What type of steel is it?

Upload files for free - The Spark Atlas.pdf - ufile.io

Rob F. · Dec 3, 2021

I do a fair amount of blacksmithing and if that was my hammer I would just heat it up and re forge the chipped end. It might end up 1/8" or so shorter but it would work just fine, just dont harden it as hard as it is now.

Your spark test pics are showing short exploding sparks and IIRC that is indicative of high carbon content.
Exactly what an old hammer should be made from.

john.k · Dec 3, 2021

The catch with spark testing is the development of HSLA steels ,and the great increase in cost of traditional alloying elements like nickle.

magneticanomaly · Dec 4, 2021

You have what I have heard called a "knapping hammer". for breaking stones. Probably tempered harder than for striking a steel tool. Usable for its original purpose as-is.

AdamPrince2 · Dec 4, 2021

Rob, Reforging/reheat seems like a very practical solution. I looked at high carbon spark streams. The spark stream ends in broken molybdenum spear points and the sparks looks similar to W2 Tool Steel or 1080 or 1090 steel. W2 loses toughness with too hot or cold of temper and all steels are used for hammers. I want to use the hammer on sheet metal, so the chip has to go.

I was hoping an old timer could guide me in the nickel blocking/forks, Molybdenum spear points, jackets, sulfur swelling, clubs, buds, umbels, sprigs, forks, oxidation, carrier lines, colors, etc of spark testing. What are those white parts that swell.

On a side note people are developing apps to read spark streams. It would be cool to have phone app read a spark stream.

AdamPrince2 · Dec 4, 2021

The grinder on the left is running faster and he is pushing harder.

Rob F. · Dec 4, 2021

Spark testing is best done by you, in person with your test part and known samples, on the same grinder with the same pressure.

Unless you are welding something critical where the match is important dont worry about what it is. You know it is "high" carbon steel. Do you have a way to heat it up and reforge the end?
For that hammer used on sheet metal I would just forge it close to the shape you want and let it cool. Grind/polish the face and use it.

If you really want to weld it 8018 or 11018 (these are stronger 7018 rods) would probably work fine, it is just hard to get a good weld with a lot of carbon.

gbent · Dec 4, 2021

For sheet metal work consider just grinding the face back to eliminate the chip. I personally hate hammers where the striking face is that far from the handle axis. The face wonders to much during the swing.

Its a very interesting book, thanks for posting. Successful spark testing is best done in a dim room.

dian · Dec 5, 2021

the "atlas" has been uploading overnight, still nothing. what is the trick?

richard newman · Dec 5, 2021

Mine uploaded almost instantly, maybe you should try another browser.

But every other page was upside down, WTF?

AdamPrince2 · Dec 5, 2021

richard newman said:
Mine uploaded almost instantly, maybe you should try another browser.

But every other page was upside down, WTF?

Like I wrote: "Maybe someone can cleanup the pdf." This book is unavailable from Amazon, eBay, google books, nearly any public library, or any book store I know of. There is a flip button at the top of my PDF viewer.

dian · Dec 6, 2021

yes, firefox did it. incredible book. i dind realize molten metal was comming of the wheel (1800°). so that the material gets up to critical during grinding is no joke. thanks for posting this. but how does speed influence the sparks? i didnt really see anything on that until i got sick of flipping the pages.

btw, i wonder where they procured pig iron in the sixties.

Mark Rand · Dec 6, 2021

dian said:
btw, i wonder where they procured pig iron in the sixties.

Pig iron is what comes from a blast furnace.

dian · Dec 7, 2021

well, if you want to call it pig iron, but its liquid and gets converted to steel. how do you get a piece of it? i associate pig iron with the puddling process to produce wrought iron, that stopped being in use about 50 years earlier. But im not really familiar with how steel was made in the 60ies.

Mark Rand · Dec 7, 2021

It gets converted to steels, cast irons, wrought iron etc. after it comes out of the blast furnace. Pig iron is the primary starting point for all the ferrous alloy and forms.

Where's Boslab when you need him?

Dave G. · Dec 7, 2021

Mark Rand said:
It gets converted to steels, cast irons, wrought iron etc. after it comes out of the blast furnace. Pig iron is the primary starting point for all the ferrous alloy and forms.

Where's Boslab when you need him?

In the mills I worked the stuff out of the blast furnace was "hot metal". Iron saturated with carbon with some Si and Mn. If you solidified it in molds it was then "pig iron". Modern pneumatic steelmaking converts the hot metal to near pure iron with oxygen and then adds the carbon/alloys to flavor. Electric steelmaking uses scrap and direct reduced iron (and/or pig iron) to make liquid steel and then adds carbon/alloy same as the pneumatic process. So technically not everything starts as pig iron anymore. DRI is a cheaper and greener method - More DRI every year and less blast furnace iron. AIST.ORG has a series of good schematic videos that show both methods.

And to spark testing - I saw the last of the trained spark testers retire. All the mills use portable spectrometers now. Couple of days of training and a paper trial vs 6 months of training for a man. Did a little spark testing myself and can see carbon OK, doing the alloys is much tougher.

spaeth · Dec 7, 2021

Adam,
! have a Seventh Edition American Machinists' Handbook that shows 8 different patterns of sparks for determining ferrous metals. I've consulted and used that info when I needed to get a rough idea of what kind of steel is this. The book is from 1940. I also have a Fourth Edition of that same book from 1926 showing the same. Pretty easy to see the difference between, Mild, High Carbon, Alloy and High Speed Steels which can be handy.
spaeth

boslab · Dec 7, 2021

Sorry mark!
Pig iron ie cast iron with approximately 5% carbon used to be made in blast furnaces ( small ones) cupolas ( bottom door drop furnaces common in foundry’s)
And the like, the name comes from the way the sand bed was used to form ingots
The Sow, aka mother pig feeding piglets in a row and the ladders bore an uncanny resemblance to each other, at the gate to the piglets the iron was throttled by a constricted bit of the bed, this allowed sledge hammer breaking up, ( famously used tool, 28lb sledge and a great big bloke!)
The piglets were broken off the feeders and hence the term pig iron.
Another method was “plate” iron, in this the charge was simply poured on the floor and smashed up when cool, the term plating is still used when a charging ladle loses gate control, the crane just travels up and down the casting bay pouring the metal on the floor for later a) breaking up for iron or b) rolling up and lancing for steel ( very unpleasant process of cutting with oxy lances, packed or plain, I got good at that!)
Pig iron was the name that stuck, looks like a sow suckling piglets.
Metallurgical speaking high carbon high silicon dirty cast iron for further refining.
Mark

eKretz · Dec 8, 2021

Cool book, thanks! I have a couple already but they are much shorter and less detailed. I rotated the errant pages and cropped them a bit to get less of the scanner bed in the images. Here's a download link for any who would like the fixed up version:

Dropbox - The Spark Atlas.pdf - Simplify your life

Mark Rand · Dec 8, 2021

Here's a plater's hammer next to an ordinary 10lb sledge. It gets used for keeping the workshop door open when I'm moving stuff in and out.

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