Whats one apprentice more or less??

 Back then they weren't too worried about the stuff. The fish in our local river still aren't edible after the gold rush miners had the wonderful idea to dump barrels of mercury in the head waters of the river with the idea that the mercury will dissolve the gold as it flows down river. Then they just had to collect it down river and burn the mercury off to get the gold. Much easier said than done.

I also found this in "Heat treatment of steel. Erik Oberg 1920"

 

My 1925 copy of "Scientific American Cyclopedia of Formulas" has several mixtures for hardening steel in it involving rosin, both a a quenchant and as part of case hardening mixtures.  I was more amused though by the water based quenching mixtures that add 6 oz of red wine in the mixture.

"Practical Blacksmithing"  mentions the mercury quench.  Ugh.

Never quench with a wine you wouldn't drink.

And don't wine quench till you pass out in the shop. 

Frosty The Lucky.

The sauv blanc pairs perfectly with a pen knife, where as a sword needs a more robust burgandy. 

On 10/23/2020 at 12:31 AM, Shabumi said:

From my smaller experiments the ratio I liked ended up at 10 pt rosin, 5 pt brick dust and 1 pt BLO. 

Shabumi, is that parts by weight or parts by volume?

On 1/2/2022 at 8:02 PM, JHCC said:

Shabumi, is that parts by weight or parts by volume?

Sorry for the late response, I haven't been on the site for a while.

That is by volume. If you are planning on making some, I'd start with half the amount of BLO and see if you like the consistency. It's much easier to add more than it is to take it out.

7 hours ago, Shabumi said:

That is by volume.

Thanks, Shabumi. I ended up doing something similar, and it worked fairly well. Things are complicated somewhat by the fact that it's winter and my shop is unheated.; that makes it kind of hard to tell if I've gotten the texture quite right.

I had the same problem. I can see if someone does a lot of repousse, that they might want to make a harder batch for summer and softer batch for winter.

Or work in a heated environment!

Have you tried ice as a backer yet?

I reached out to ice for backing, but got a chilly reception.

That's *cold* man!   Out here a Chili reception is *HOT*!  Stop by Don Juan's and have a bowl of their green chili stew---it's green alright!

Now I'm envious.

Don't be till you've tried it.  We used to take our European colleagues who said they liked hot food to Don Juan's for lunch.  Out of a dozen people: 1 finished the bowl and asked for more. I ate about half of one bowl and the rest had a couple of spoonsful and called it quits.  They use the renowned locally grown Lemitar green Chile and depending on how that years crop was; it can stand in for CS gas in a pinch!

And if you are a fan I could probably bring some out to Q-S, perhaps a quart jar of roasted green chili puree?  (Remind me when it get's closer!)

Will do!

Or if you would prefer them fresh and roast, peel and puree them yourself I could bring a box or sack.