I just got a little welder and was thinking of welding sharp tips on my rebar drags to maybe help them a bit in more open areas. Would heavy nails work good? I know some use Cotton picker teeth.

Yep
I have used heavy nails at times.

If you want a sharp, hard point on your rebar drags; I grind them in with a grinder. "Hog" those points in them quench those "blue" metal points with water while they are hot. You will end up with a hardend point that is comparable with a forged point on those drags.

Not trying to start an argument but I’m pretty sure from watching forged in fire that quenching in water makes metal turn brittle.

They say motor oil is the best for quenching blades because it has a lot of carbon in the oil. It's been a while since i've messed with that stuff.

Reber doesn't count, it's soft as h anyway, I don't think you could make it brittle if you tried.

Yukon John is correct, but if it makes you feel better use oil, it's just not necessary for this application. I also find it a little humerous that someone would actually get any metallurgical knowledge from watching "forged in fire". LOL

You can heat re bar cherry red and then quench It In cold water. It becomes so brittle you can break It over your knee. That's why you only see re bar being tied on construction sites and not welded.

Copy and pasted from one of my old posts


Hay sorry about that boss lol, cleaned out my pm s. Anyhow I don't have a scale to weight mine lol but just feeling I recokwn my coyote ones are in the 2.5 -3 pond range. That being said I feel to a degree the weight of the drag and be some whay if a mute point if you don't have a good Desigh. And the design is gonna depend in what you want the drag to do .
But that's a whole lot of typing so I'm just going to assume you want a good drag that will dig and plow in about everything and not be too heavy or bulky . O and I've actually had a friend of mine test a dozen of these in Midwest and he loves em ! Said coyotes don't go far at all .
Drag body is doubled 5/8ts rebar which I feel better stabilizes the drag than a single beam. Prongs are 3/8's cold roll ,originally used 3/8's spikes but in my testing haven't had many problems with the 3/8s bending . The eyes is a 3/4" lock washer ( can't remember if that's the exact size though. Prongs are welded on straight then bent at about a 30 degree angle and spend inwards two are the main shank. If you want digging and hooking action a can no stress how important bending your prong inward is. I'm not sure the technical terminology but basically it creates a better hooking and almost a cork screwing action and performs much better than a drag with it points orientated outwards. Any how here's some pics

Very nice wolfdog. Thanks

Huh , I feel I’ve learned a lot watching forged in fire . Seeing as I knew nothing about it other than you don’t quench in WATER before watching the show .

Sorry that comment wasn’t helpful ! But quenching in oil will help harden steel . The temperature of the metal and the length of time in the oil all come into play. Wolfdogs post was good information!

Quenching steel is the hardening step.That takes it to brittle.It then needs to be tempered by heating in an oven on 400 to 600 degrees,depending on the steel.This "draws" the temper back and makes it tougher and less brittle.

Heat treating and tempering is hardly practical or necessary with drags,given their purpose.I am sure that cotton picker spindles would have high quality steel and perfect heat treat.Nothing wrong with that.It is a great 2fer without doing any extra work but in using rebar,I wouldn't worry about it.

Personally my drags to not need to be too sharp as they perform in a different environment (Northeast Minnesota forest), nearly ideally, as a "clog". By the time the fur primes the ground is froze, most often with 1-4 ft of snow. Even if on a bare season opener, the furbearers tend to be near thick forests of saplings or underbrush. The purpose of the drags is to catch a sapling or bush and hold. 20 feet is as far as even a wolf gets typically. Open hooks, bent outward, are a better bet for this type of action. 8-10ft chain, I like #5 machine or bigger, and I don't worry about a light drag as long as a wolf won't straighten it. More often than not the animal is not pulling on the drag more that a few minutes after hooking a tree. The chain wraps around other trees and they are pulling against the chain.

The ideal part when a strong animal the those saplings have some "give" and become a shock spring of a sort. Especially if a foot or more of snow as that has the effect of a foot of sapling to bend.

I have a few pointed drags for hay fields before freeze up, but mostly 1/2 rebar bent or welded suffices.

Good points,Ringbill.Agressive drags have their place but in some situations,dull can be better.

Exactly !