Re: make - forge? - wedge for feathers-and-wedge rock-split

"Joe Gwinn"  wrote in message news:9fkg0j9s55p1vamdq8rq19lq3gaq6i7j34@4ax.com...
On Sat, 30 Mar 2024 12:25:20 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
<muratlanne@gmail.com> wrote:

"Peter Fairbrother"  wrote in message news:uu999l$128v0$1@dont-email.me...

Do we have any idea what kind of steel they use?
Joe Gwinn
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The feathers are soft and flexible, the wedge harder, such that it puts scrape marks on the feathers but not vice versa. The wedge heads have become slightly mushroomed. The feathers are all warped from use, I'd have to carefully straighten some to reconstruct the original geometry.
The feathers for the 5x 1/2" set and the single 3/4" were all made from 3/8" round rod. The large end is a half circle. I chose 1/2" after finding several new 1/2" spline drive bits from an auction in a second hand tool store (that's closing).
I suppose the feathers could be cut freehand endwise on an upright bandsaw if the stock was tightly clamped in an inverted toolmakers vise to keep it from twisting when the blade was off center, then beltsanded to smooth ridges. I bandsawed some oak slab scrap into a batch of wedges freehand to pencil lines that came out straight and smooth enough for the carpenter neighbor to think I bought them until sunshine revealed the saw marks.