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rockpoint tips

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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S

sickbugs

spearo
Jul 5, 2005
341
18
0
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does anyone know if the beuchat rockpoint spear tips are through-hardened, or case hardened? i havnt been able to get an answer from beuchat and its buggin the hell out of me, the point is starting to loose its pointyness, and i dont wanna resharpen it unless its fully hardened.. i also dont wanna take a file to it to find out, because i dont have any extra tips.
 
i would hope that it is not case hardened. all thetips i have ever sharpened were fine after. so go for it
 
Regardless of how it's hardened, sharpen the thing! :head

The thing is to do it while not generating a lot of heat, which means taking it over to the bench grinder is a no-no. :rcard

A bit of time with a file isn't going to take the temper from the the tip, and really, it's not like we're talking about these things being exhaust valves or high speed mill bits, right? A dinged tip is the price of the fun.
 
i've used a file on immersion tips which are just like the beuchats go for it
 
I tried to sharpen an old Sea Hornet Mako head with a file -They are case hardened I think anyway it was harder than the file- these are a chrome plated point not stainless but something that is much harder.
Even case hardened tips would probably have about a 2 or 3mm case depth and it is not a problem to grind hardened tips but just like drills or screw drivers or other hardened tools the correct technique needs to be used to grind so as not to generate excessive heat ie- use very little pressure and grind for a very short time then quench or allow time to cool before touching it on the wheel again. it helps to have a wheel with relatively open and soft bond also as glased wheels will burn rather than cut.
Peter
 
i dont use powertools for sharpening anything.. i sharpened it up, and hmn... well, it does seem to possibly be case hardened, well, nothing some heat treating cant take care of.. im gonna reshape the entire tip (make it a bit narrower) then heat treat it, why dont people just make things properly the first time !
 
Through hardening is normally used to produce a lower hardness than case hardening the through hardened steel is generally hardened to the same Hardness all the way through and can be filed whereas case hardened steel generally has a toughened core with a much harder outer case aThe case depth is of varying thickness and is generally much harder than what can be achieved by through hardening a case hardened tip for a spear would be less likely to be effected by hitting a rock however if it was damaged would probably break or chip rather than bending,whereas a through hardened tip would bend easier but be unlikely to chip or break. For a Tip Case hardening may be a good thing but for a complete shaft it may be too brittle and possibly break under some bending loads this is where case depths and hardness and core hardnesses need to be worked out to achive the best balance for the required application.
 
the digicam wasnt working, so i couldnt take pics of the proccess, but now, regardless of how it came from factory, it is fully hardened nice and sharp too.. i gave it 3 thermal cycles before hardening it (i had it on a screw so that the threads wouldnt compress too much during the cooling cycle, still had to use a bit of force with a pliers to get it off, but it went back onto the spear fairly easy)

im definately not a fan of case hardening, the steel appears to be something very similar to 1090 or 5160 carbon steel, which i used to routinely get 55 - 57 rc with the same proccess i used, after it was nice and hard, i tempered it back down a bit, before tempering, the file was just skating across the surface, after tempering, it would bite in just a bit, but nowhere near how it was filing before i hardened, this is what i expected from the start from a rockpoint tip... now i gotta hope that i dont loose the spear before i can decide if it was worth the work
 
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