what to do with case hardened 1566

[andrerich517]

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.

[ThomasPowers]

What are you trying to do with it? Yes you can anneal it. A JABOD or even a hole in the ground could be used with chunk charcoal as fuel and a blow drier for air. Heat till non magnetic then let cool slowly in dry ashes or even in the forge.

As BGD mentions below: if you are wanting to forge it; it doesn't need to be annealed and any case hardening will scale off in a short amount of time in most beginner's forges!

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Stick it in the fire and get forging. When it is yellow hot it will be more than annealed.

[patrick]

Given the alloy it is most likely induction hardened. It can be annealed as Thomas noted but you don' have to worry about scaling away the high carbon layer because the carbon content will be fairly uniform throughout the pieces. 

[ThomasPowers]

So a surface hardened steel rather than  carburizing a case and then hardening.  Good to know.

See you at Quad-State?

[patrick]

Yeah carbon content s that high usually are not carburized. Those grade usually are limited to 0.3 carbon. Higher carbon in the base material has less driving forced to absorb more carbon. Also by keeping carbon low in the base material you get better core toughness.