Quench tub woes

[desmato]

 For years I've never had issues but this year, I have a TON of mosquito larvae in my tub.  never really though about it until now, but what do others do to minimize the stagnant water woes ?  maybe I need to use it more often 

[swedefiddle]

Good Morning,

A thin film of Oil, Cooking Oil, Vegetable Oil, Engine Oil, Hydraulic Oil, Special Oil (so Special, it doesn't have a name). They can't put their air pipe through the oil film, Finito!! You get the advantage of a oil film on your quenched parts, so they won't rust!!  Double your pleasure!!!

Neil

[pnut]

You definitely want to kill off any mosquito larvae. There's been cases of Eastern equine encephalitis reported this summer. I think eleven cases have been reported with three fatalities in Mass. There's been cases of California encephalitis reported in Michigan.

Pnut

Edited September 10, 2019 by pnut

[ThomasPowers]

Why do you have a quench tub?  In my smithing I just normalize stuff.  (As I work HC stuff often, having water around is a bad and evil thing luring you to ruin a piece you have just spent days working on!)

If I need water for spot cooling of mild steel, I fill a bucket with it and carry it out to the forge and when I'm done for the day I pour it onto the roots of the tree that shades the shop.

Back when the typical material forged was very low carbon wrought iron smiths commonly quenched at will; but that's long gone---A-36 sometimes can harden or crack when quenched.

[Frosty]

I keep a couple 1 gl. milk jugs of water in the shop in case. 

Mosquito control is very effective using garlic oil, a couple drops in a 1/2 wine barrel works a treat.

Frosty The Lucky. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I have a cover over the slack tub. Serves two purposes keeping mosquito's out and prevents cutoffs from the hot cut hardy from landing in it. Only remove the cover when needed.

[CrazyGoatLady]

I keep a lid on mine also

[Gazz]

I have a steel barrel that is maybe 10 gallons just outside the door to the shop placed so that it catches rain water off the roof.  To keep the mosquitoes out, I took an old bicycle wheel, removed the tire, stretched some window screen over the rim and put the tire back on to hold the screen in place.  That is the cover and it will still collect the run off from the roof but no critters.  Light and easy to move when needed.

I'm not sure, but I think if your slack tub is inside and out of the sun the mosquitoes may not find it attractive as a potential nursery.

[Goods]

I put a little oil in mine, but for some reason that didn’t do the job (maybe not enough). Then my son added a splash of acid. No mosquitos now, but quenched items do rust faster. (Not sure I’d really recommend this method...)

[SLAG]

Mr. Goods,

Acids accelerate rusting. Acid is not needed to suppress mosquitoes. It probably does not do anything effective.

Putting a very thin layer of oil on top of the water should inhibit mosquitoes.

The oil clogs up the spiracles of the floating mosquito larvae. They float upside down with their butts up and they breath through their hind end. Oil clogs the spiracles and stops breathing. (respiration).

The oil layer need not be thick. Indeed a several molecule thick layer will work.

SLAG.

[desmato]

 My tub is an HDPE 40 gallon ? from our fireworks business (bulk Amonium Nitrate) and it does have a lid, now gainfully employed   the tub is indoors but ....   

 Thomas, I do most all my work with HR / A36 and it's use as a quench tub is because I'm impatient to let stuff cool, especially when I need to touch it for whatever reason before moving to the next step or make changes. Never had hardening/cracking issues, but now I most certainly will. It also serves as a quench tub for my belt grinder and band saw + welding and torch work.  Nearest hose is 150' away so easier to just have it.

  I like the film of oil as that will help the tongs out as well. 

[Daswulf]

Wonder if dish soap would work on those buggers? The light film of oil should work fine but I hate when my quench water gets an oily film. Sometimes I rinse my hands in my quench tub when they get sooty from handling coal. Then again I never had mosquito larvae in my quench tub. 

(I use the term "quench" tub loosely)

[BillyBones]

Was on the way to work one morning listening to the radio. One of the DJ's said he went to clean out his gutters and there were some standing pools of water trapped in the debris. He could not figure out how that the minnows got on top of his house. Yes, he said he had minnows "a little smaller than a grain of rice" in his gutters. The sad part though was that 3 others on air with him did not correct him. 

I have only gotten mosquito larvae once, a quick spray with WD-40 took care of them. 

I used to get a good build up of slime and algae though but a hunk of copper pipe tossed in took care of that. 

Something that just crossed my mind for both. Pool shock. Anyone know if that would work? I do not go to pools much less ever taken care of one, heck i avoid swimming at all costs, love water like a cat. So i am not familiar with what it does but i know it is supposed to keep the pool clean. Oh and i also know it is chlorine so maybe also some bleach in the water may work. Dont know just a thought.  

[Frosty]

Pool shock is or was muriatic acid to help balance the chlorine. I think pool shock is more a brand name than a type stuff. 

Dish soap should help drown mosquitoes while laying eggs. 

I think of the general water barrel used to control hot tools, hands, etc. as the "Slack Tub" rather than a "Quench tank/tub." Slack is either derived from or visa versa. Slake as in slake your thirst. While in the old days hardened tools were probably quenched in the slack tub and etymologically they're probably the same thing. However it might be a good time to differentiate between keeping things cool enough to hold or stopping a temper from Hardening from critical.

I'm thinking there is enough to get confused about breaking into this craft why use two different terms and multiple definitions interchangeably? 

Harden = "Quench."

Everything else referring to cooling metal = "Slake."

Hmmmm?

Frosty The Lucky.

[pnut]

I agree Frosty, I thought slack tub was the term and would have kept the confusion to a minimum. I have enough trouble keeping words straight in my damaged head. I unfortunately do have to substitute words frequently and it bothers me. If I want to finish a thought though it sometimes has to be done. The more tired or fatigued I get the worse it becomes. Isn't TBI fun?

Pnut

 

[picker77]

Discovered those wiggly little critters in my 10 gallon slack/slake tub a couple of days ago, like some I don't like oily water in the tub since I rinse my hands in it sometimes and I just don't like oily coatings on stuff. Half a cup of Clorox bleach in the 10-gal tub cured the problem more or less instantly. Easy peasy, and probably killed any other nasty things that might be in there to boot.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Sometimes the nasty things were drowned mice. Another reason I keep the slack tub covered.

[Glenn]

If you do not have to add water to the quench tank by lunch to replace what boiled off, you were not working hard enough.  Problem solved.

[pnut]

Even if you're not working hard a piece of mild steel heated up and sized appropriately and put in your slack tub to raise the temp like when you heat oil for quenching  should do the job. I haven't been able to find what the upper survivable water temperature  is  for larvae. I would think not much higher than 140f should kill them but I don't know yet. I'll keep trying to find an answer.

Pnut

Edited September 20, 2019 by pnut

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

I have yet to see a skeeter at my home in the desert even though I am near a small river. The bats do a great job, and I don't have extensive landscaping.  My slack tub evaporates pretty fast, so I am constantly hauling water out to it.

[ConstructionK88]

@ Desoto I'm still stuck on the "ammonium nitrate for fireworks" part??

[Frosty]

On 9/17/2019 at 2:14 AM, pnut said:

The more tired or fatigued I get the worse it becomes. Isn't TBI fun?

The joys of aphasia, the harder you try the harder the right word hides in those wrinkles on your brain. 

I was only suggesting we use a specific term to refer to quickly chilling / cooling (synonymous words.) steel from less than critical. I don't think there's really a difference currently. We quench our thirst just like our grandparents slaked theirs. However currently quenching seems to be used most often for quickly cooling steel from above critical temp to harden and slake is pretty much forgotten. 

It's just Frosty on his quest to consolidate words and terms as widely as he can so I don't have to explain myself so often.

Frosty The Lucky.

[pnut]

We need agreed upon terms to communicate in what is equal to basically text messaging.. I've seen many threads where the op generically uses a term or terms to encompass a series of procedures, tools, whatever. The more I learn the easier it gets to figure out what they really mean. Heat treat is one that comes to mind, when they meant tempering.  Agreed upon terms make it easier to understand, especially if you don't have a lot of experience with blacksmithing nevermind the added delights of a scratch and dent brain.

Pnut

[BillyBones]

I am a stickler on proper terms at my job. Like when people ask for a star bit, and what they want is a Torx, kind of makes me crazy. But then again i work with people who do not know what 3/8" x 16 x 1" bolt is either. Some time i really throw them off and ask for a socket cap bolt. 

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

BillyBones, As a machinist I would write that out as 3/8"-16x1".  I worked with a young lady who threw me for a loop when she said , do you mean a ring tap? I asked her to show me what a ring tap was, and she showed me a threading die. She knew what a tap was, but no one had told her what a die was, kinda made sense in a way. Anyhow, I brought in my machinist training text book and let her borrow it to learn about cutters, taps and dies, etc since she was in the tool room. She really appreciated me doing that for her, and we have been friends since then.

I let some terms slide like Crescent wrench, but I get more uptight with other things like people calling things that are coincidental , ironic....  The only irony in the Alanis Morrissete song "isn't it ironic" was the lack of irony in a song about irony.    We all have our trigger points, hahaha.