bitsandspurs

I was wondering what you are all using for rowels. I've been cutting mine out by hand from O1 tool steel and then heat treating it. They have a nice ring you can hear from 30 feet away.

Larry

I use a saw mill blade, I am not sure what kind of steel it is but I have to take the temper out to be able to cut it on my ban saw. And after putting the temper back in they have a really nice sound. I was in a buddy's shop the other day and he is using 4130 material and you dont have to take the temper out to be able to cut it, and they also sound great. I would also like to say that I really enjoyed seeing your work, it's really awsome.

Jerry

Any toolsteel hardened and tempered rings pretty good I just experemented till I got the sound I was looking for. I have used the inside of some polished rods out of some big cylinders that made some good sound and are holding up pretty good for wear to, but any toolsteel should too. That is what I've done so far for bigger rowels, smaller rowels were the sound doesn't matter that much and things dont have a tendency of bending that much a mild steel with a little hardness works plum fine. I guess whatever HOLDS UP WELL and sounds the way you want and sells is the ticket the way I see it, everyone has a different veiw.

Willey

Thanks Jerry, I'll try and put up a few more photos this weekend if I can get my wife to do it for me. I don't want to bore everyone with my stuff and I hope more of you will put up some photos. I sure like to see what everyone else is doing.

I think a lot of saw blade steel is L1 or something like that. It is a good steel but like you said you have to anneal it first to make it easier to work and then you need to harden and temper it.

For smaller rowels one old cowboy said he used the stars out of a grinding stone dresser. Claimed they worked real good.

I was talking to Bruce Haener from California and he told how some old makers would use mild steel and then cold forge a round disk to work harden it to use for rowels.

I talked to a guy here in Prescott who spends a lot of time in Mexico and he showed me some suprs that were made down on a ranch he stays at. They were rough but one pair had rowels cut from the frame of an old Ford truck and the other pair had rowels chisled from a truck spring, both were about 2 3/4" in dia. they had a real nice ring.

Larry

Hey Larry,
I'm with you on getting the Secretay to do all that!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have some 1" O1 and some 1 1/2" 52100 roundbar. I cut slices off of them for rowels. Heat treated, mild pins, and they sound good. Now I have some 4140 in 1 1/4" roundbar.

If the spur rowel is hardened steel and the rowel pin is not... how long will it take for the pin to wear through and you lose those nice rowels? Time wise, I have no answer but for certain, that pin is not going to last very long.

Sure is interesting! Thanks- How many of you guys use stainless steel rowel pins? I do, but they are a bunch more work to peen over. I've seen some silver soldered in, but that sounds bad down the road.

i use mild steel rowels, a similar pin and place them in a mild steel shank. they all rub together over time and one is not harder than the other so maximum wear is attained, without any softer places taking abuse. this may be wrong, but i am open to new ideas.

hackamore, just found this post today. I been using a set of spurs with hardened rowels and 3/16" mildsteel pins for about 4 years which figures out to about 600 hours of use and there isn't any noticable wear and should get another 600 hours out of then with no problem. I drill a 7/32" hole in the rowel and countersink each side a little to take off the sharp edge. Bottom line is that these pins do wear out and a person should always keep all their gear in good repair.

Larry

Larry

Here is a rowel pin story for you. When I was about 18 my dad gave me his old Kelly spurs. He had long ago knocked the big rowels out of them and replaced them with some of those wheels out of a grinding stone dresser. As they say today, "rock grinder" rowels. As you most likely know... those rowels were made of some super hard stuff!

A friend and myself pulled up under a shade tree for a few minutes one day when my friend noticed that I had lost a spur rowel. The odd thing is... I looked at the other spur and I had lost that rowel too! Both rowels gone on the same day.

Now for the rest of the story! I replaced those rowels with another set of them "rock grinders". Probably used welding rod for a pin. Those rock grinders are still in those spurs. When I hung the spurs up about 20 years ago the pins were wore down to about the size of a round tooth pick.

I guess the truth is... it took a lot of ridin' to wear that first set of pins out and I now for a fact that it took a lot of ridin' to wear wear the new set out. Just a story!

Hackamore
Hurley Hughes