saintjohnbarleycorn

There are a number of thermocouples and "readers" you can even use a cheap electrical meter to read the thermocouple as it makes electricity milivolt range. Do some more reasearch, ebay, craigs list, they are not that hard to put together, and digital does have its advantages. good luck.

thanks frosty and others I never thought of it on that level.

ha , it was momax, I got the right name finally. I think its the cobalt.

yes that is what i got, where my friend works they make tools out of it, for machining, but the mobic must be some generic term, or the steel is made from there. thanks.

is mobic steel a certian type of steel or a manufacturer or what? Someone told me that they had some but that was the only info they had on it, and I had never heard of it? thanks.

thanks

great thanks a lot for the info, that helps me understand it a lot better, do you run up to the desired temp in a short time or do you ramp up slower, is this part of the two hour tempering?

thanks for the reply, by the way , since the colors are made with oxidation, will I get stronger colors with heat outside ( flame or piece of hot steel) of a tempering oven, then in it? Yes I have been sanding the steel to see the color, when I do it with flame or on a hot piece of steel I can see them very clearly. But in the oven it seem more difficult, I may have been getting light straw at 425 or so, but not sure about it , like I can kind of see it but not like when I use flame, also flame has the advantage of see all the colors from blue on up as a reference. I will keep working at it. As far as far as edge I am looking at keeping a cutting blade sharp longer, so I am thinking that yellow straw would give me a hard edge that would be harder to sharpen but would hole the edge longer, perhaps that is too simple of an obversation, and should rely on more hands on testing? I am trying to get the temper down for this particular steel so I can make a batch of them, Its much faster to do it with flame and cheaper, but I would like to get some consistancy with the oven and also be able to do 20 at a time or so.

just as an update, I was getting stress cracks so I am using oil. I am up to 475 on tempering, but I am having a hard time seeing the color, my next batch I am going to run the colors with heat, and place that in the oven with the other pieces so I can see the difference, does that make sense?

thanks all

what quench and tempering would you use for leaf spring?

also a lot of info on the forum " practical machinist" under the vfd's heading.

I have 2 teco's no enclosure and one other brand , I make my own enclosures, I have had them for three years and no problem, They are all in unheated structures. With all electronics you can get bad ones, and brands can start out good and then go down hill. I also like automation direct good service and people. they are happy to help you on the phone.

here is what I found on the specs http://www.suppliersonline.com/propertypages/1075.asp#Spec

I sent a number of emails out and got a call from one rep, he thinks it might be 1070 because it is the one they sell the most of and most popular. they sell 1050, 1070, and 1095 in a blue tempered state. I will see if I get some more feedback. I have weygers book but can't remember where it is! will be finding it soon, I am reading "hardening, tempering , and heat treatment" by tubal cain, trying to get the basic ideas stuck in my head, but still have a way to go. I hope to have some more time off here and do some more experimenting. thanks again for all the help.

here are a couple of links I have emailed them , I have tried others but no response to the makeup of the material. looks like maybe oil hardening. not sure about what they mean by high carbon. http://www.bekaert.com/en/product%20catalog/products/a/auger%20wire.aspx http://www.ausagserv...los-augers.html

thanks, I will read up on normalizing, if they are not that high in carbon I probably won't go too far into carving tools.

thanks, the steel I am using is an auger for a feeding system for chickens,very springy coiled, comes in lengths of about 150'. its about 1/4" by 3/8", I have been making corkscrews out of it and running it up to to about 600 they are blue at that point, and they are fine for that. I have done two batches so far water hardening, and tried 325f, no color, then 350 still no color, I will try again tomorrow and go with oil . if spark test means much they are very bright white and spread out like fireworks at the end of the spark, no other color like reds or any dullness to it. I am heating , untwisting , then forging the shape, heating to non magnetic , then quenching, tempering. After the water they are extremely brittle. The ones I just did, they had no color,and I can file, which makes me think I didn't harden them properly. when I first hardened tham I tried a file and it took off an outer layer and then would skate across.or so I thought. thanks for all the help, It may be that this steel will not work for what I want but I want to keep experimenting with it as I have so much of it.

thanks, I am making them from scratch. thanks, all. I will do the file test and see what I get. I am doing the hardening with the file test, if it skates that would be a good I can get with no info on the steel? is that correct.

I have been reading some and have seen the tempering colors. So if you get to a straw color this means the steel has oxidized and it has reached a certain color. I am trying to get some carving tools (wood) to as about hard as I can and still be workable, but maybe that's not such a good idea either. Its not that critical that I want to send them away and some of the steel I am not sure, what it is exactly but I think its a high carbon steel. so I have a oven and can get the temps fairly close, but I don't have any other facility's for testing other than trial and error. my question is if you soak a piece of steel, after hardening, how accurate are the colors to true harness? Lets say you have a couple of pieces of steel, that you don't really know the makeup of does the color really reflect the true hardness or is it close enough? If you want to test that, would you break it and see if the grains were very close and fine, and keep experimenting till you get there, or is the grain not a way to tell harness either? a file . thanks

thanks , what temp are we talking here?

Should you put charcoal in any oven that you use for tempering? thanks.

thanks I hope to get some time in the shop to do some experimenting on this, thanks for all the help.

thanks i see you point, I don'[t have a lot I think I bought a couple of rods to try it out. I think I also bought a couple of a-2 i think.