Heat Treating, general discussion

Hello, its been a long while since I last posted on here(been super busy with college and what not), and its been just as long since I've made anything on the forge, due to school and my workshop(the garage) is now full of stuff, so there is no room. I am planning on moving my shop out into the "dog run" on the side of my house, and am excited to get back onto forging. But, the one thing I seem to be missing is a quenching bucket. I have a water bucket, but no oil bucket. I want ideas on what to do for a good, long term, quenching tank/container thing. I will be doing projects that will require plenty of length, and others with width. While I will probably use just a 5 ga…

The recent and active thread on "first anvil build" gives a link to some test data on hardening both mild and tool steel: http://paaba.net/Pro...ZWeekendMet.htm These data state that superquench had no effect on mild steel (1018, I suppose since it was stated as about 0.2% carbon) and was no better than brine on tool steel (4140).I do not have a hardness tester, but when a high mileage horseshoeing client of mine was asking for hardened shoes (she was wearing regular shoes out in about three weeks) I did harden some 1018 with it and have it tested. Don't remember the exact numbers but seem to recall mid 40's rather than the reported 18 in this paper. I also had …

Hello all, I sent some dies to a heat treat shop. I had 4140 written on the steel. I have a few hundred dollars invested in machining. They were heat treated but do not test above 45 Hrc. I was after 54 Hrc. The representative in the shop thought they behaved like 4130. He can case harden them but these dies are for cold work (sheet metal power hammer). Is there any prudent next step that I might be able to take. I bought the steel new but it was 20 years ago. I must have mislabeled it. -Adair

It is will known that most of tool steels are quenched in oil to prevent cracking and distortion which appears when quenching in water due to non-uniform cooling caused by formation of insulating vapor blanket "film boiling". but according to some literature [1] using 14% brine solution or 1% polymer solution eliminate this vapor blanket so we can expecting more uniform cooling compared to water quenching. according to another literature [2] the probability of quench crack formation firstly increases to the maximum value, and then decreases to zero. increasing cooling rate is possible by using strongly circulated brine quenching bath, and using brine elimi…

Does anybody have a link to an IR thermometer that can reach upwards of 2000 degrees Fahrenheit? I am having a hard time finding one online...

Hello, i am currently doing a little research for my university about the material used to manufacture hydraulic cylinder for robotic application. and so far i have found that ductile iron for cylinder, and nickel-chromium alloy for the piston rods. as for surface treatment we might use electrodposition to enhance he wear and corrosion resistance if the piston rods was made from mild carbon steel for example, but there's no heat treatment for rod or cylinders . what do you think about that ? thanks

Hi, Please help a new guy with his stupid question. I bought a cheap 240V electric muffle furnace off ebay. The furnace seemed to work well when I first got it, but since the first firing to about 300C I'm unable to even turn the elements on, much less program it. I've been able to get it to the point where indicator lights show it's under load but it doesn't heat up at all. The controller is an i-Therm AI 7891. Scrolling through youtube it seems that while many commands are universal some are unique to their brands. I downloaded the "Manual" which seems very opaque to me, I can hardly make heads or tails of it. So, my question is this, does anyone …

I'm trying to learn more about heat treating and the different ways it can be done. I was wondering why fish soap and jet dry where added to a brine solution. What purpose do they serve for the steel.

A little while back, I got a party balloon helium tank that I'd originally planned to make into a gas forge. However, I ultimately decided to stick with solid fuel and make the tank into a slack tub. I'd cut the top off and stood the tank on end in a brake rotor that gave it a bit more stability. So far, so good. I recently got another helium tank and the aluminum frame from an old speaker and thought they might be good for a more stable slack tub. This time, I cut the bottom off, cut the carrying handles in half, and bent them around the frame to hold everything securely. I added a double layer of hardware cloth inside, to protect the bottom a bit and cat…

I made 4 flint and steel strikers from hay rake tines. After heating to non magnetic plus (orange heat), I quenched the striker part in canola oil letting the top arms & scrolls cool to black heat before quenching the whole thing until cool enough to hold. A file skates off the striker surface just as well as one I'd purchased years ago. I next hit the striking edge lightly with my belt sander to remove the decarbonized layer. 2 spark ok and two do not spark well at all. My flint is good and sharp and sparks well with the striker I purchased. Any ideas what I did wrong? I'm thinking maybe I need to try again and normalize them all twice before quenching…

I started out building a heat treating oven a few months ago. It was a total failure, other than a good learning experience. I'm going to try it again with new materials and knowledge as see if I can't make it work this time. I ordered a dozen insulating bricks a month or two ago. They arrived and most of them were broken, so I asked for replacements or a refund. the Vendor chose replacement and it's been nothing but me nagging him to ship them ever since. They finally arrived intact today, so I have lots of bricks. Square bricks in a round tube is not ideal, but I think it will fly. I need a good surface to mount the element on, and the bricks will serve well i…

I have built an electric heat treating furnace and just have a couple minor tweaks to finish everything up. I did a lot of calculations and for the most part I was within a fairly small margin of error in the finished product. I built it to run on 110/120v without tripping a 20 amp breaker and I have succeeded at that. I also wanted it to reach 1950 degrees F (1065 degrees C), which I have also accomplished. However, it takes over 3 hours to go from ambient temperature up to my target. Since this is my first build and I have no previous experience with electric furnaces I was curious how this compares to commercially produced ovens operating at the same voltage. If…

I recently made some pins for a project at work using a coil spring. I'm assuming it is 5160. After great treating and tempering them I realized that I need to drill and tap the ends of the pins for a 1/4X20 screw and in their hardened state they wear out my drill bit really fast (obviously). So now I need to aneal them. This is where the problem comes into play. I do not have a forge here, so I can't use the technique of heating them up, and then cooling them down slowly in the forge. I am thinking about trying the following technique but wanted to run it past you gurus to see what you thought. Fill a metal bucket with dirt leaving a cavity in the center. Hea…

I just replaced my pellet stove, and looking at the old one...enameled cast iron...it occurred to me that it would make a sexy tempering oven. The only problem is I've never built an oven, or even messed much with electronics. Very roughly I figured I'd: 1) Rip out all the guts, basically leaving a cast iron body with a door. I might have to weld on a back plate before I'm done. 2) Put some kind of heating element/coil/flux capacitor in there somewhere, with a steel plate to catch and distribute radiant heat. 3) Add some sort of power switch and controller to the heating element. 4) Hang a thermometer in it, or use a probe and external readout. …

Hi guys, I have been normalizing 10xx carbon steels and 5160 that I have not yet finished forging because of time constraints.I take it to non mag and cycle lower 2 more times.I know this the best thing to do with it , is it OK put it back into gas forge and shut it off to let it slow cool directly after hammering on it.I will need to start forge another time and heat up and hammer the rest of the way later. Thanks Mike

Searched the internet, seems like a forum like this would be an ok place to ask. Got a set of headphones with a metal band that has lost its clamping force, stretched out over time. Short of buying a new set of headphone, figured Id ask if there was a way to bring this metal bands spring back with some type of heat treatment. I know there will be no exact answer as no one knows what kind of steel this actually is, but its already taken apart and if I accomplish nothing, it was going in the trash anyways. Thanks for any help you can offer.

I do all of my forging at a museum that teaches large numbers of students at a time. One of the classes was on tool making (punches, chisels, whatever, it was basically teaching heat treating) and at the time, I made a chisel. After a few days of use, it broke about halfway up the blade. Okay, so, I'll make another. Same thing happened. The material used was old coil springs, and the method was very basic; straighten it, taper it, shape it, go through a single normalizing cycle, quench the tip in water, allow the heat in the handle to temper the tip. I think this method was being taught as the most basic way of going through the process, and many other stude…

Hello all, I was just gifted a bit of 1566 scrap of various diameters, all less than 18 inches in length. Unfortunately it is all case hardened. Can I anneal this to soften the hardening? I a newbie and don't have access to a heat treat oven. If I can anneal, a quick tutorial would be helpful. Thanks for any and all advice, wisdom, jokes, jabs, and cheap shots.

What' the best temp and time to temper 1/8 inch and 1/4 inch steel?

I have this question; what is the farthest extent possible to anneal a piece of steel? would that change the steel's composition? would it make a see-able (visible would be the word) difference, I am very new here and to blacksmithing. feelable difference? thanks so much, awrkiron

I have made several chisels out of mild steel with an O1 tool steel bit forge welded to it. I was wondering about tempering of the bit: Do you see any problems with hardening the blade and not tempering it as the body of the chisel is made out of tough mild steel. reason I was thinking is that any hardness that is in the O1 after quenching will not be reduced in the tempering process. Is this a bad idea? thanks

is it possible or advisable to heat treat cold rolled mild steel?? i just machined an axle for a boom lift and was wondering if it would be needed. the previous axle was ductile iron and snapped clean in half in the middle of the gears and dont really want this to happen again...ive come up with a different hub mounting arrangement to make the weakest point of the axle outside the hub by using large tack welds versus a solid cored axle/hub arrangement...this way i hope that the tacks will break before the axle shaft/gearing....any thoughts or info would be appreciated Keith

We spun a few teeth off of a ring gear on a 742 wakashaw and it followed me home after replacing it I'll try to get some picks later so today I cut off a piece beat it out and quenched it. It I put it in a vice and snapped it. So now what? What am I looking far?

Can anyone give me any information on EN45 steel? What would it be comparable to that I can look for guides on treatment? I'm assuming that it is just an awkward British naming of something that I have seen plenty of times in online articles/videos?

I made a blacksmith tool (a hack) with the business end made from A-2. I hardened it, then ran out of time and it still hasn't been tempered. I just read that tempering should be performed immediately after hardening. I know that tempering absolutely must be done before using or the tool will fail from internal stresses, but I'm not convinced that it's going to be such a problem if it sits around for a few days in the hardened, pre-tempered stage without being used... By letting it sit between hardening and tempering, have I caused it to form a fragile grain structure? Should I anneal, re-harden, and temper immediately or will I be okay if I go ahead and temper it n…