AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Gun Building => Topic started by: JPK on March 16, 2014, 03:58:03 AM
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I would like to share an experiment that came out well. I used bone and wood charcoal and packed the part as normal then placed in the fire. I didn't time it or measure the temperature other then guessing. The water is tap water nothing added. The first photo is all the equipment used.
(https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi853.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fab91%2FJKilts%2FIMG_0572_zps5d57e027.jpg&hash=e18a2355c170633e56b2d1b3c7738577074a4347) (http://s853.photobucket.com/user/JKilts/media/IMG_0572_zps5d57e027.jpg.html)
(https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi853.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fab91%2FJKilts%2FIMG_0573_zpsdeab2b36.jpg&hash=c4fe3982e5cb1f608a9af8b9946b9cdea559d06e) (http://s853.photobucket.com/user/JKilts/media/IMG_0573_zpsdeab2b36.jpg.html)
(https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi853.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fab91%2FJKilts%2FIMG_0578_zps605aa1f4.jpg&hash=03c6eab35bdac9a46229fa2ec6c8a7527bbc7107) (http://s853.photobucket.com/user/JKilts/media/IMG_0578_zps605aa1f4.jpg.html)
(https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi853.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fab91%2FJKilts%2FIMG_0580_zpsa2882bee.jpg&hash=13aa69ca61bba2d82473b5bbcbc65bcb73325aa5) (http://s853.photobucket.com/user/JKilts/media/IMG_0580_zpsa2882bee.jpg.html)
(https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi853.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fab91%2FJKilts%2FIMG_0581_zps8539ab77.jpg&hash=b5159a217cc991e2460abe6f5aae8f3ca0f1f99c) (http://s853.photobucket.com/user/JKilts/media/IMG_0581_zps8539ab77.jpg.html)
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That looks great will have to try that one weekend when I get a cruicable
d-a
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Did it get hard? Niche colors!
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That's amazing!!! Please provide any info with regard to the process that you used. Even your best guess as to time in the fire, ratio of bone to charcoal etc. If this is repeatable I would be thrilled! I've been wanting to try this for so long but all of the stories of failed attempts dissuaded me from making an attempt myself. I can't express how exited I am to hear that you've managed to pull it off so simply.
Absolutely gorgeous colors!!!
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Wow! That looks good. I would also like any info that you would share. I thought you had to have a forge or an oven to do this. I don't have a forge but I can make a camp fire. I have a Hawken I'm hoping to start on here before to long. Thanks
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Yeah, those colors look great. I tried that one time on an unimportant part. I figured I'd just put the part and some horn and leather in a "tin" can and toss 'em in the woodstove for a while and take it out and drop it in a bucket of water. Unfortunately my "tin" can must have been made of aluminum, because about 10 minutes after I put it it the stove it was not to be found. No matter. The next day, I dug the piece of metal out of the ashes. It was scaled solid black. All my filing and polishing was gone and it was annealed soft as lead.
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The part is hard and I'm pleased to share details. The crucible is a steel tube with a 1/8" plate welded on for a bottom and another just sat on top. The mix is 1 to 4 bone to wood charcoal with the part placed in so it's surrounded on all sides by an inch or better and 1 1/2" from bottom. The top layer is an inch with the rest filled with used charcoal to fill the tube completely. Light tapping to settle the pack but not compressed at all. Time was around an hour and a half (W.A.G.) and we cooked chicken on the side. Just before dropping the part in the water I poured the water from one bucket to another and back just to stir it up, I feel this is important to the process.
Now some guessing on my part based on what I understand about color case hardening. The carbon gasses released during the heating are absorbed into the surface of the iron if it reaches a high enough heat. These mixes of carbon are purer from charcoals and if I were to go threw the extra effort of using leather, horn, peach pits, and other suggestions I've had I would first put them in a container and heat them to make a charcoal out of them. I would love to hear and see any ones results if you do try them, good or bad. Another tip if you want muted colors yet hardening quench in oil. A sample on 12L14 steel.
(https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi853.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fab91%2FJKilts%2FIMG_0582_zps047f23bb.jpg&hash=9b5874e2e1faa2ecf56271bd76cef19ed90685f9) (http://s853.photobucket.com/user/JKilts/media/IMG_0582_zps047f23bb.jpg.html)
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Thank You JPK!!!! I'm inspired!!! ;D
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Someone posted that longhunters re-cased their frizzens on the trail, maybe using clay crucibles, or a sheet iron container, packed with charcoal.
I assume one would have to 'coal up' leather or bone before use as a pack material.
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Very nice Acer, Very nice. XI will be trying it :o
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That looks very encouraging. I know a guy in Chatham NY who tried this a few years ago, and got great results.
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I tried this process in my shop's wood stove once and it worked OK [ leather and bone packed container] but have been meaning to try using sugar on an up coming project. I read some where that sugar, being pure carbon, works well in case hardening . Anyone else tried it ?
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The place I send work to for industrial case hardening uses carbon monoxide gas to fill the furnace. I imagine that's what's happening inside the charcoal packed crucible. When you add leather, bone and peachpits, you are adding other chemicals to the gas inside the crucible. Potassium, calcium, cyanide? I am guessing now, because I ain't no chemist.
Here I yam, dumping parts and charcoal into the bucket. I put a wire screen 1" off the bottom of the bucket to keep hot bits from melting thru the bottom. For best colors, get the parts from crucible to bath with as little exposure to the air as possible.
(https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi12.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fa246%2FTom45-70%2FColor%2520case%2520hardening%2FQuench1.jpg&hash=a0a22c9a61a18b7e6e29aa8c2a3ac9c00abf2cff) (http://s12.photobucket.com/user/Tom45-70/media/Color%20case%20hardening/Quench1.jpg.html)
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I have never tried this but would like to give it a shot. What is something cheap I can use for a cubicle and where do you get the bone stuff.... Thanks. Al
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Could you use 4' or 6" pipe X 6 "- 8" tall, threaded on one with an end cap on the threaded end and flat plate on the top? Sounds like this might work for small parts.
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Could you use 4' or 6" pipe X 6 "- 8" tall, threaded on one with an end cap on the threaded end and flat plate on the top? Sounds like this might work for small parts.
It would. The OP seems to have used a piece of box tube with welded end for his crusible.
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Guys,
I make my bone charcoal from a box of bone meal that you can buy at a garden center, it looks like bone that is ground to a coarse granular - like Fg powder. I turn the bone meal and leather into charcoal just the same way as making char cloth. Put it into a sealed metal container with a couple of small holes in the top, toss it into the coals of a campfire and wait until the smoke stops coming out, take it out of the campfire and wait until it cools before opening the container. The mix I use for case hardening is 1/3 hardwood charcoal, 1/3 bone charcoal and 1/3 leather charcoal. This mix does a good job of hardening, but I certainly never got those beautiful colors on my parts. Thanks for posting, nice work, very interesting and outstanding colors, beautiful.
Jim
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So would this method be a good way to harden and color the lockplate, hammer and frizzen?
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Guys,
Once I did the quenching as Acer shows in the picture of his post. However, I was not wearing the protective gear that you see him wearing; Yikes, that was a major bonehead move! So, if you try quenching directly from the crucible, be absolutely sure to wear protective gear just like Acer. I ended up with some steam scalds on my wrists (I did have short gloves on) and on my face. No permanent damage, but a tough lesson that I will not forget.
Now I quench in a separate operation. After the crucible has been hot for an hour or so, I remove it from the fire and let it cool. Then I heat & quench the parts individually just like they were made from a hardenable steel like 1095. It works OK. I think than most of the steam flash I encountered was from the red hot charcoal, not from the metal. Lesson learned.
Jim
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Good info to know, Jim!
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Okay, dummy here is missing something. If pure water is used, nothing added, why this?
"Just before dropping the part in the water I poured the water from one bucket to another and back just to stir it up, I feel this is important to the process."
:-\ ??? :-\
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Okay, dummy here is missing something. If pure water is used, nothing added, why this?
"Just before dropping the part in the water I poured the water from one bucket to another and back just to stir it up, I feel this is important to the process."
:-\ ??? :-\
For agitation I would assume. Some guys use an air stone in there water to give more agitation and supposedly more colors.
d-a
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Regarding colors:
If you heat a piece of polished metal it will go thru various colors as it gets hotter. The paler colors are at the top of the heat range.
When you quench a piece of red hot metal, the reverse action occurs. The thinner sections will cool faster and freeze at paler colors. The thicker sections will cool slower and freeze at the darker (blue) colors.
How, if anything, do all these voodoo methods and formulas alter this physical process to achieve colors?
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Regarding colors:
If you heat a piece of polished metal it will go thru various colors as it gets hotter. The paler colors are at the top of the heat range.
When you quench a piece of red hot metal, the reverse action occurs. The thinner sections will cool faster and freeze at paler colors. The thicker sections will cool slower and freeze at the darker (blue) colors.
How, if anything, do all these voodoo methods and formulas alter this physical process to achieve colors?
Could you describe your method of color case hardening and possible picture of your results?
I'm researching this at the moment and taking notes so I can try and duplicate results. All of my current attempts have produced a hardened piece but lacked colors except a dull grey.
d-a
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Here's the deal: The reasonong behind case hardening is to harden the metal, not to make pretty colors. The colors are secondary. Think about the process. It's easier to forge "soft" steel or iron into a desired shape than it is to forge tool steel (hardenable by quenching). The soft steel or iron won't harden no matter how you quench or temper it, but it will harden on the outside by "case hardening".
On the other hand, let's say you've successfully forged a frizzen to shape out of tool steel. You want to file it and make it look good and get rid of all the black/scale from the forge. Well, I hope you didn't let it cool too fast because it'll be a bear to file. So, you didn't and now it's all filed pretty, but it's too soft. You stick it back in the forge and get it hot enough to quench, now it's full of hard scale again.
So forging the part out of softer material, then case hardening it is actually easier.
The colors peolple refer to are confusing in that when metal heats up in the forge, it goes from black to dull red to orange to yellow to white to sparks. These colors range from room temperature up to about 2100 degrees fnht. Tempering colors are totally different. To see tempering colors the metal must be polished. The colors go from light straw to dark straw to brown with purple spots to possum ear blue to dark blue to grey, and range from about 400 degrees to maybe 650 or 700. Grey is back to being pretty soft.
"Case" colors are different still and I have not messed around with the process enough to contribute anything of value to this discussion.
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Nordnecker,
I try to catch the color I call peacock when coloring my iron parts, just because it is pretty, sort of a purple/blue/brown color. But, possum ear blue is a lot more descriptive, next time a possum pays a visit, I'll check out the ears. I have reformed my vocabulary - peacock is out and possum ear is in. Thank for the "colorful" word.
Jim
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Jerry Huddleston (may his tribe increase) explained the variation in colours well, when he talked about wrapping the part with a random wrap of iron wire prior to heat treating. Perhaps that thread can be resurrected, or perhaps Jerry might see this and chime in with another great lesson.
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If you want more blues in the colors add a small amount of potassium nitrate to the water. It is the oxygen and steam in the water that creates the colors not the carbon used in the pack but more bone charcoal will make more grays. Wrapping the parts with wire or placing another piece of iron or steel close to the part will enhance the colors because it traps the steam close to the part while it cools.
Notice this. If you heat blue a piece of steel exposed to the atmosphere it will turn blue but if you paint part of the surface with a deoxidizer or a flux such as borax and alcohol that part will not turn blue but will remain bright.
Beautiful colors can be obtained without hardening a part. Any temp. over approx. 650° will give colors.
Colors are more durable if the part is hardened at 1450° or above. As the quenching temperature goes over 1550 the colors begin to disappear. At around 1700° and up there will not be any colors to speak of. Also too high of a quenching temp will give the metal a grainy look.
I personally care less about colors than I do about hardness. Hardness preserves any engraving and make the lock action more proficient and durable.
Infra red pryrometers are cheap and work well for this type of work.
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Great thread, I have had an interest for a while to use this process on more than just gun parts. Due to what Ive read, I have been reluctant to try to experiment with charcoal production and secret mixes and amounts etc. The exorbident mailing costs for me to get some of the components is proof of this... The question I have for the more experienced is reccomending some good reference material for me on this process.. thx..Kerry
As a footnote, I was told by a metal artist once to try quencing metal in an aireated bath with a couple drops of vegetable oil added. He managed to produce decent colors in his work but it was not very durable and had to be laquered
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The process of producing case colors is extremely important to those with interest in expensive shotguns. The process is very much as the campfire one discussed here but there are company secrets about the things added to get the same colors over the company's total production. For example, Parker guns and L.C. Smith gun colors are easily separated by their differences in colors. Colors redone by gunsmiths other than the manufacturers are quickly detected. Turnbull will case color and has pretty much cracked the code on proprietary colors. Parkers made late in the Remington years of production were colored with a Cyanide process which doesn't sound like something for small shops or hobby builders to play with. The colors are only a molecule or two thick and easily worn away by handling. Shotgun makers coat the colors with a lacquer to protect the colors from hand wear. Color life can be extended by periodically re lacquering. Items like lock plates are susceptible to warping and need to be put into a supporting metal fixtures to hold them straight. Fixtures also play a role in the coloring patterns. There are risks to the parts. Two identical high end shotguns in perfect condition can vary in value by several thousand dollars based on the degree of "original" case colors remaining.
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I just use a propane torch and heat the metal to my desired color and quench in 30W motor oil, wax it and you are done. You can see an example of the color on this pistol display rack
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Andy, the torch method is not the best process. First if the piece is case hardened the torch method will likely ruin that and weaken the metal. Second, the colors are very recognizable and often used to deceive the unaware into thinking they are buying a good finish which it clearly is not. In shotgun circles it might even get you publicly verbally lynched for ruining otherwise useful guns. The torch also does not case harden the metal to provide the same level of wear and rust resistance which real case hardening processes provide.
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KNeilson
Believe me when I tell you that I have done a lot of this for at least 30 years. You don't need any exotic mixtures . all you need is good clean wood charcoal. Grind it to about the consistancy of a matchhead or 1/8" size and smaller. What the guy said about warping lock plates is true. It is a very good idea to brace the lock plate some how to prevent warping. I usually bolt mine to a thick piece of steel with some spacers betwen the block and the lockplate. Do not put any type of oil in the water or it will not come out with good colors. Clean fresh water at room temperature works best and you do not need to blow air into the water. ice cold water is dangerous and can cause cracking. a piece of pipe with a cap on one end makes a good container. Just set a lid on top . A piece of sheet metal will do for a lid. You can get a pyrometer for about 50.00 or less to measure temp. Infra red type work well. soak in the heat at 1450° to 1550° fo an hour to an hour and a half. Quench at that temp. do not let air get to the parts before you quench and watch out for your hair and eyes when you quench. I wear a face shield and wet my hair.
When you done dry the pieces off and reheat them to about 350° in the kitchen oven for an hour. that will take most of the stree out of them and enhance the colors some.Then oil them.
Both of these two locks are case hardened. On the first one I added some potassium nitrate in the water to make a lot of blue. The next one was case hardened and then brought back bright to be historically correct.
http://jwh-flintlocks.net/lockface-2012.jpg
http://jwh-flintlocks.net/jaegerlock-super1-small.jpg
one more http://jwh-flintlocks.net/casehardenedlock4.jpg
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Wow! Those are elegant looking locks! Nice work..
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Jerry, those colors are superb! Do you use an oven for this or are you a campfire guy too?
I'm wondering if a campfire heat source is capable of yielding consistent results?
Perhaps a woodstove would prove useful for this.
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I now use a electric furnace that I built. Basically it is a electric kiln with a front opening door. I use this now because I do a lot of gold work on guns and with gold I need a real close temp. control. I put a type k thermocouple right on the parts container. Strangely gold will melt at about 1575° when packed in charcoal. Gold is a weird metal. I learned that the hard way. You can ruin a months work in a short time.
Years ago I used a wood stove and then a crucible furnace. A wood stove works well with a large fire. A large wood fire would work just as well but I would not use a forced air draft like a blower because the fire will get too hot. A plain wood fire with a natural draft works great because it seems to burn at about 1500° F. Lots of good red coals is what you need. the heat needs to be retained for at least an hour. I used to harden frizzens in a woodstove back in 1970. It worked real well.
Dave Race knows a lot about this also. Maybe he will chime in. He teaches classes on this.
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Jerry, I can't thank you enough. You've got no idea how valuable your experience is to me with regard to this process. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who appreciates your taking the time to explain how you managed to obtain these colors.
Another question if I may... You mention wood charcoal but nothing about bone ,leather of any other types of charcoal. Are you saying that you were able to get results like those pictured with wood charcoal only?
Thanks again,
Kevin
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Yes. I have obtained excellent colors with nothing but wood charcoal. However I do mix it with bone charcoal on some occasions. It doesn't seem to make that much difference though. The charcoal has to be clean. Well burned out and with no oil or other contaminates. The kind of wood used for the charcoal makes no difference. I have used raw bone meal but no colors will be obtained with it. It stinks also. Bone charcoal is expensive. Brownels has it but it is not neccessary. Brownels also has wood charcoal. I buy it because I know it is clean. Leather scraps are lousy for color hardening. Leather will work for plain case hardening of a frizzen or something like that.
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Wow, Jerry, I am always blown away by your work.
Those locks are beautiful.
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Thanks again Jerry. I just finished welding up a crucible and a set of forks to handle it with. Ground up some hardwood charcoal. Ordered a pyrometer with a temperature range up to 1625 F.
If all goes well I'll be running some experiments next weekend.
Thanks to JPK as well for staring this thread and inspiring me. Thanks to everyone else for their input. I'm psyched!!! ;D
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Although this is an old topic I recently had satisfactory results with an attempt to case harden the steel on my rifle. I figured the addition may aid someone else looking to do similar. The pics show the results of a hardwood fire, crushed hardwood charcoal, a 5.56 ammo can crucible, and 30 gal trash can. I used 1 bottle of stump killer (potassium nitrate) in the quench of tap / well water. I braced the parts with 3/16 steel found on most any hardware store to limit warping. I wrapped the parts with degreased tie wire while trapping some larger parts of charcoal between.
My objective was to create a hard surface with interesting coloring, not necessarily a striking color case job. The bad... My tang warped due to not being screwed down firmly enough; I'm now fitting a new tang to an inlet and finished stock. Lesson learned, don't attempt to straighten a hard part. I haven't tried firing the lock yet and hope the cock doesn't shatter.
(https://i.ibb.co/yFGs7Ht/IMG-20200111-152640.jpg) (https://ibb.co/B2dsF0b)
(https://i.ibb.co/PWBqb3G/26834.jpg) (https://ibb.co/X5mcdNx)
(https://i.ibb.co/sb81SBj/26833.jpg) (https://ibb.co/2WGM2bq)
(https://i.ibb.co/CMPvZQ3/IMG-20200111-152735.jpg) (https://ibb.co/WPVFwf4)
(https://i.ibb.co/mXG4L54/IMG-20200112-154613.jpg) (https://ibb.co/yYXqwFq)