How to create a hard edge to your steel.

Hi guys & gals. I just watched Old Tony on youtube trialing some tool steel tig welding rods, with quite amazing results.

I have a Tig welder as i guess a lot of you folks have too. Well worth a watch.

Steve.

Creating a tools steel edge to soft steel.

I’ve used umpteen kilos of hard facing rods in the dim and distant past. I’m guessing they would be too brittle for shock loading?

Some engine valves were stellite faced - biggest problem I’ve had with those is the whole head dropping off! Not sure if that was hard valves running on hardened seat inserts, but it was a problem with one make of engine. Always the risk that the insert fell out first, I suppose.

A couple of pics of the valve head.

It started out at about 2 1/8“/2 3/16” diameter, IIRC. It bounced around for a while....

I know one fellow that removed what appeared to be a ball bearing from the combustion chamber of an engine which was run for some time (probably an hour or hours) after the valve dropped in. Engine was considered scrap on that one. My engine was repaired and is still in running condition.

I ran a Ford Anglia van which wrecked its engine after a ball bearing fell out of one of those tyre pumps you used to be able to get that screwed into a sparkplug hole. Moaning to the guy I worked a bit for at the garage and he reckoned it was not uncommon. That one was repaired and ran until the next MOT wrote off the van.

Looks pretty useful for various applications

Thats exactly how stellite was used.

I wonder where he got his rods from, he sounds like he's from the US, but some products he uses look Italian.