Awesome, thanks for the response. Do you think a car spring is a decent metal to work on for a blade? Also do you think I can acquire the amount of heat needed in an wood fire(outside) to get the metal to a dull orange? The more I reheat it, will it at all dull the strength of the blade? Again thanks for the response. I've done research and tried to get some books about making blades, but I always find it's best to learn from others.

Gosh, a wood fire will have to be super hot to turn the blade to a red heat. Maybe if you had a bellows or blower that would feed air to the fire. Once you get it to that heat bury the blade in the wood ash and let the fire go out overnight.

The steel should then be annealed and you should be able to work it with the hack saw. Get you a good new file and file your edges of the blade.

Then after you have done all the work on the blade, reheat it with the same red color, but this time, once you've reached the desired color, quench it in cold water. Swirl it around real fast. What you want to do is to cool it as quickly as possible so the hard carbon is held outside.

hmm, well...what would you suggest to heat it with then(on a low budget)? A blowtorch?

What you want to make is nothing new.
There is a 10,000 year old tradition, with techniques, materials, tools, books, classes, and experts who have gone before you.

Its called blacksmithing.

You need to study a bit.
Which is free.
Go to the library, and ask for The Complete Modern Blacksmith by Alexander Weygers, or buy it from Amazon for 14 bucks.
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Modern-Blacksmith-Alexander-Weygers/dp/0898158966
This is a great intro, telling how to do exactly what you want to do on a shoestring budget.

You are also lucky to be in Austin- Austin Community college has a great blacksmithing program.
http://www3.austincc.edu/schedule/s207s/weld207sf.htm
There is an active blacksmithing community in Austin, a lot of great people who know a lot.

Basically, you need to learn more about metals, and working them, before you start just hacking away.
Are you actually going to go out and go mano a mano, with this spear, against a 500lb wild boar?

Whether you are or not, I would suggest starting out learning to shape simple mild steel, before starting to work on mystery metal like a car spring, which being a high carbon steel, is going to be a lot tougher to work.
Mild steel spears are just fine at killing people and animals- Bronze, which is much softer, was used for hundreds of years quite effectively.

Hehehe, indeed it is called blacksmithing. Thanks for the book reference. Is there a cheap metal that you would recommend(specifically) I play with instead of fussing with the leaf spring and/or a place I can purchase it? Heh, yes I am going to be using this to fight a boar one on one. Its a trial I must go through, but not to worry because I'm going to have some friends with guns just in case it goes down hill. Oh and its about the hunt and a thing of understanding, not about the safety of standing behind a barrel.

Just how many boars are you trying to spear?
Why not just shoot the critter.

Uhh- Gloves?
Really there are all kinds of modern inventions that make this much easier.

You can use a pair of Vise Grip locking pliers to hold the hot steel.

But I still dont see exactly what you think you have accomplished by heating up a spring. It is still a high carbon steel, and most likely, even leaving it in the embers, it hasnt annealed very much- its gonna be HARD. Even straightening it out is going to be quite tough- that particular alloy and manufacturing technique was chosen precisely to make it the most difficult to straighten.

Look in the yellow pages under steel, go buy a piece of mild steel- A36, flat bar, the size you want. Already straight.

Then you can just cut it with your hack saw, and file it.

No heat is needed. For one Boar Killing event, you just dont need an heirloom quality, hardened and engraved Highlander style blade.

If you really want to learn how to do this right- my advice above, about the Weygers book, and classes at the community college still hold.

If all you want is one sharp item, to kill one boar, un heat treated, ordinary old mild steel will do it just fine.

Yeah, I did use gloves but I also wrapped my hands, because it was really hot. I was able to straighten the spring with not too much trouble and since it is high carbon steel I'm not worried about reheating it to keep it tougher than it already is. Basically I'm experimenting and just having fun. I already cut the metal and now I'm just working on the filing(I'll be doing that in front of the tv). Yeah, but if I get the chance I think I may just try the community college class. So far I've been having lots of fun doing this. Thanks for everyones help. I'll see if I can get some pictures of it so you all can see it. ^_^

I just stumbled across this; I can't even remember what I was looking for. How'd this project turn out?

I know I'm late to the party but, from a hobby blacksmith, here are a couple of tips if you ever decide to make one of these again.

First, to properly anneal (soften) hardened steel you'll need to heat it until it turns nonmagnetic, then cool it *very* slowly. An easy way to do this is to heat it to nonmagnetic in the fire (check with a magnet!), then leave it there. Pile on a bunch of extra fuel and let the fire slowly burn down overnight. Wood ash is an excellent insulator, and the still-burning fire will help ensure that the piece doesn't cool too fast.

Naturally aspirated fires typically won't get hot enough for forging, annealing or heat treating. A hair dryer makes a very workable temporary blower.

When the steel is annealed it'll be relatively soft and easy to work. Even so, filing a respectable spearhead out of a leafspring is a *whole* lot of work. Invest $18 in a 4.5" angle grinder from Harbor Freight. Get a couple of grinding wheels and a 10-pack of cutting wheels. They're cheap. It'll be one of the best metalworking investments you ever made. Be very careful with it. Wear eye and ear protection and leather gloves while you're using the grinder. It spins at around 13,000 RPM, and it can't tell your finger from 1/2" thick steel plate (which it can cut quite efficiently). Rough the spearhead to shape with the grinder, *then* switch to files. With an angle grinder you can do in minutes what would take hours with hacksaws and files. Of course that speed also makes it possible to ruin a piece almost instantly. Pay attention to what you're doing.

Once you have the piece properly shaped and rough sanded (leave the edges 1/32" to 1/16" thick), you'll want to harden it again if you expect it to take an edge. Annealed steel won't take an edge to speak of, and won't hold an edge for long. It's too soft. It's also much weaker than hardened steel, which isn't so good for a boar spear. So it's back to the fire. Heat to nonmagnetic again, then a little hotter. Withdraw the piece and *immediately* quench in oil -- not water. (Water and brine are too severe for most modern alloy steels; the piece is likely to crack if cooled that quickly. Oil is slower and therefore gentler.) What kind of oil? Light motor oil (used is fine), tranny fluid, hydraulic oil, vegetable oil -- almost any relatively light, low-viscosity oil will do fine. (A metallurgist would cringe at that statement, and he'd be right for industrial purposes. But for your purposes it'll be fine.)

*DO THE QUENCH OUTSIDE AND AWAY FROM FLAMMABLE THINGS (LIKE YOUR HOME)*
*USE A FIREPROOF CONTAINER WITH A LID THAT CAN BE QUICKLY PUT IN PLACE TO SMOTHER A FIRE* (A small steel trash can with a lid is great, if it doesn't leak.)
*USE AT LEAST THREE GALLONS OF OIL FOR SOMETHING THE SIDE OF A LARGE KNIFE OR SPEARHEAD; FIVE WOULD BE BETTER*
*DON'T PUT YOUR FACE OVER THE BUCKET WHILE YOU QUENCH*
*WEAR LEATHER WELDING GAUNTLETS TO PROTECT YOUR HANDS IN CASE OF A FLARE-UP*

Flare-ups happen with oil quenches. It's generally only a little oil vapor at the top of the quench tank burning off. No big deal. But if you use too little oil, and get the whole quenching bath up to or above the flash point of the oil, you have a problem: several gallons of flaming oil with more stored chemical energy than the equivalent amount of gasoline. Now THAT'S a fire! Don't use too little oil.

Quench until the color is gone; then -- at least with most alloy steels -- you can remove the piece from the quenchant bath and let it cool the rest of the way to room temperature in still air. You can also leave the piece in the oil until the two reach the same temperature, but warping and cracking are slightly more likely that way.

Now, if you've done everything right your spearhead should be fully hardened -- so hard that a light file stroke should skate across its edge without biting. The problem is that it's so hard it's brittle, and it'll be impossible to sharpen. So you need to soften it. In the absence of proper heat treating equipment your best bet is probably to stick it your oven at about 500 degrees for an hour. Let it cool to room temperature, then repeat twice more.

Now do your finish sanding, polishing and sharpening.

I suspect that in mid january of this year there were posts on some woodworkers net. about makeing a spear. Best kinds of woods, length, joining two or more dowel sticks together?
The posts would have divided into two distinct groups. The jointery group strongly favoring mortis and tendon and straight grained woods. Ash leading as the most popular choice. And the un-steam bend faction selecting a hickory shovel handle as it's starting point. Useing the clothes dryer vent and the picnic table were all mentioned. After buying a hoe handle, the problem soon turned to the leather net. Where it was pointed out that noone on metal net gave anymention to attaching this nice spear point to the handle. The electricians net stepped up with it's two solutions. Shrink tubing or good old black tape. Our hero chose the good ol' black tape but used the red tape he had have left over from another adventure. He was feeling that the use of some high tech sure beat the heck out of having to skin a wild boar so he could make leather to lash his spear point to his boar killing spear. It's the chicken and the egg all over again. Of course the spear now named deliverence needs to have a few appropiate feathers. We are lost in feather net. Remember sometimes the goal is not important, it's about the journey. and it's all a journey. Brad I love this post