Recommendations? My best guess is heat to cherry red, then quench. Then temper....but to what temperature/hardness? Or is it entirely dependent on the type of steel used to make the driver?

Any input?

What steel are you using? Some cold roll isn't hardenable.

Guess that's the rub. One is a superstake driver that Mark June sold out of, and the other is unknown. I assume they're both decently high carbon content.

Probably your best choice would be to weld on the end that's mushrooming and grind the weld down to size.

If you know how to do a spark test, you can have an idea if the metal has enough carbon to harden.

Depends solely on which steel is used and carbon content. It could be several quenching mediums and a hundreds of degrees difference between temps for austenitic temp and temper. I made my wolf fang driver from 303 stainless and it's lasted a year so far and i beat the snot out of it. i used it to drive a shaft from a washing machine i worked on the other day,lol.

No clue about that stuff, was hoping it was just an easy care of heat, dunk, temper. Doesn't sound that way.

what part of the driver do you normally have issues with.

What I did. I used a 1/2” smooth rod , that you can buy any were. And bought a harden 1/2” bolt. I cut the threads off and head off and put a grove on one end that fits my pogo and weld it to the round rod. And I have a nut and handle on the other end. I don’t have any problems with it. But, I don’t have to deal with rocks. Just tree roots now and then. I weld it fast so the heat don’t builds up on it and lose the temper.

If you are starting from scratch buy some 15MM SS linear shaft steel, and turn down the end to the desired diameter. It welds easy with a mig and no need to harden.

Head over to the fall coyote thread in the chat they were haven a big conversation on heat treating and tempering steal. Even how to make a forge.