I have a re-hilting project I am in the middle of. The tang needs to be peened to hold the hilt on. I have done 3 rehilting projects in the past where I peened the tang cold -- no heating of the metal. These seemed to work satisfactorily for those projects, but those swords were only ever going to see use as display items. The project I am working on now I would like to use for cutting demonstrations. So, my question is, will heating the metal and peening the tang hot produce a better result, or should a cold peen be sufficient?

I should say that I am a bit concerned that I might damage the grip in some way if I heat the tang sufficiently to peen the tang hot. If I heat the end of the tang using a torch, how hot do I need to get the metal? What color should it be before I add the pommel and start hammering?

Chris

Hi Chris

Some of it depends on what type of steel the piece is. The more carbon present the more sensitive to cracking it can be in certain temperature ranges. If we are dealing with a medium carbon steel the peen can be done cold if the material is annealed or hot if the tang has color. ( By this I mean there is at least a bit of inner glow in the steel working in a darkened area makes this easier. I would expect one would want to take it to a cherry red at least. Steel can be a bit brittle and crumbly in certain ranges of temperature between these to say in the 300 to 900 degrees.

If you are trying to heat the tang end then slide the pommel on and peen the piece in place that needs to be set up just so as there is little time to do the operation. The cold pommel sucks the heat from the tang very quickly. My preferred method is to use a torch with a medium tip and heat the tang with the pommel in place. It heats the pommel some but is a more controllable process.

In period my guess is most items were peened cold. I have not seen a great difference in hot or cold peening if the piece is set up right and a good job is done on the peen.

Best Regards
Craig