Getting started here... don't even have a forge set up, but I bide my time between pay day and free day trying to understand basic principles. Of course the first family member I mentioned my interest to requested a spike knife(a little ahead of my desired first projects of nipper tongs, nails, and bracing for a work bench). Well, I'm a proponent of make it useful, make it right and then make it pretty, and I think I understand that it simply isn't tool/ good edge grade steel coming from a spike. So I'd like to find the best and most readily available method... Optimum results ya know. (I think I saw the best option on the site as... forging a spike out of the right steel and going from there.)
Well back on topic now... I spoke with a guy who sent me a kitchen based recipe for hardening mild steel. And I would really like any input on it seeing as it's still going to be a little while before I can just give it a go. Curious particularly about why it does/doesn't work, an explanation of the carbon issue, and what grades of steel it would and would not work for if at all. the recipe is:
5 gallons of water
24 ounces of Dawn dish soap
5 lbs of table salt
8 oz Jet Dry or other rinsing aid
(I think I could divide that down a bit)
Can the potentially worst recipe for kool-aid in history make for easy, cheap and highly effective hardening quench of mild steel?
Please feel free to correct anywhere I'm off track.