Casehardening with bonemeal?

[Acer Saccharum]

bonemeal...can it be used straight out of the bag, or does it need to be turned into charcoal first before casehardening with it?

I am going to do some more casehardening, have always used charcoal to pack the parts in. I'd like to add some bone meal IF it does any good, if there is any advantage over straight charcoal. This is not for colors, but for hardening purposes.

Any thoughts or experiences welcomed.

Acer

[Pete G.]

The old gunsmithing book I had just says to pack the piece in bonemeal. The heat will take care of the charring. It also advises to do a very quick dump into the water for your quench and you will get some color.

[flintriflesmith]

At the CWF Gunshop we used 1/3 wood charcoal; 1/3 chared leather;& 1/3 charcoal made from bone meal. Supposedly the three together are period correct and provide some trace elements not found in charcoal alone. Who knows if it is an old period correct wives tale!

I would not personally use regular bone meal without charring because of the moisture in it. We saw moisture/steam cause pitting to polished surfaces during the heating phase and before it was driven off.

Gary

[smart dog]

Hi Acer,
I think Gary is correct.  The bone meal may also have fats and oils that will introduce grease into the process.  It will also probaly smell really bad.

dave

[Acer Saccharum]

I bet this will give off some nasty stinks on its way to being charcoal. For fine work, certainly you'd want to carbonize it first.


Waaay back in Catholic school(1959), I remember smelling the glue factory down by the Hudson River cooking up horsehide or fish skins, right around 11 in the morning. The smell was atrocious, but also made my stomach ache for food.

[E.vonAschwege]

Waaay back in Catholic school(1959), I remember smelling the glue factory down by the Hudson River cooking up horsehide or fish skins, right around 11 in the morning. The smell was atrocious, but also made my stomach ache for food.

The atrocious stench of cooking horsehide and fish skin made you hungry??  And you complained about scrapple  . 
-E

[Acer Saccharum]

Who asked you, anyway? 

I'm not saying it made sense, that's what I remember.

[Acer Saccharum]

ANd thanks guys, for your helpful replies. I will cook some of this first to get the oils (and probably corrosive vapors) out of the meal. The neighbors are gonna love me.

Acer.

[44-henry]

I got the itch a couple years ago to try raw bonemeal purchased from a local garden center. My intent was to char it and I placed it in a graphite crucible, sealed, and stuck it in a gas kiln. About 20 minutes later the whole lab was filled with an awful stench and their were green flames shooting out of my kiln. The stuff left over in the crucible resembled melted glass.

I still don't know what I did that time as I have made charcoal using the same process before with other materials. I do know the stuff you purchase from Brownells is good stuff and that is what I've been using since than.

[smart dog]

Who asked you, anyway? 

I'm not saying it made sense, that's what I remember.

Now Acer, is that anyway to treat our resident scholar and foster child (scratch that - foster young adult, sorry Eric)? My first job after college was working in my brother's meat processing business and slaughter house. I spent my first months boning out cow's heads for hamburger meat and de-veining livers.  It did not make me hungry. Then I started work for NJ Fish and Game picking up dead deer off the highways.  That didn't make me hungry either.

dave

[B Shipman]

Acer, what I do is to put a pile of bone meal in a baking pan on the gas grill and cook it into chacoal. This process smells like $#*! but the chacoal gives a very tight pack and gives very nice colors. The only trick is to go quickly from heat to water. Just let the container explode and duck. Any air on the parts will ruin the color. (But not the hardening).

[Acer Saccharum]

...explode and duck.

Posted by: Dave_Person    Posted on: June 01, 2009, 10:12:57 PM
..... picking up dead deer off the highways.  That didn't make me hungry either.

Deer and Duck. Thanks for the info, guys.

Posted by: jerrywh     ...leaves a lot of empty space in the box or container so you need a lot of cover over the parts so that they will not become exposed.

Jerry, if I carbonize the meal ahead of time, I might avoid some of the shrinking. Do you think I lose any of the carbonizing qualities of the meal if I coal it first?

[Jim Filipski]

I use bone charcoal ( get it in bulk from a fish supply store) I also save up all my used  "pur" water filters  then break them open for the granular charcoal ( bone charcoal)
I always have packed 50/50- bone charcoal with cut up pieces of oak tanned ( vegetable tan) leather scraps.
I also do this for hardening frizzens but then I sometimes put in a few tablespoons of casinit for extra measure. I don't think it necessary however.
Now I think I have to start a new thread on crucibles
Jim

[northmn]

Question?? What is the advantage of using bone meal over a commercial product like Kasenit?

DP

[Jim Filipski]

Question?? What is the advantage of using bone meal over a commercial product like Kasenit?

DP

I would have to say Price ....if your doing big parts ( or a lot ) it will get expensive with Kasenit 
Color.....you don't get the good color range on the metal with Kasenite

Other then that it works fine

[northmn]

Thankyou, I was curious.  Mostly I do small parts.  Dixie GW used to have a resipe for hardening parts packed in a tine can and filled with various carbon additives including bonemeal which was thrown in a wood fire.    I understand the issue of torch hardening with Kasenit and the shallow case.  Color is something worth pursuing.  I know the cyanide gives a better color but it must be tricky to use safley?

DP

[44-henry]

I don't think the colors you get with potassium cyanide are better, they actually appear more gaudy in my opinion. The bone and wood charcoal process gives much better results. Someone mentioned crucibles, here is a photo of the type I have been using with good results over the last couple years.



Here is a photo of the setup I have (we recently added a larger furnace).



Here is a shot of the crucible at the time of the quench (it does throw sparks)



If you want to take a look, here is a short video I made of one of my students casehardening the base plate for the steam engines I have them build.

[JCKelly]

The main purpose of using bone CHARCOAL, not bone meal, is to get pretty colors on the case-hardened part.
The process of color case hardening is carried out at rather low temperature, so one has a thin file-hard surface over soft metal.
Kasenit is a mixture of, I believe, potassium ferrocyanide, K4Fe(CN)6, some form of charcoal & I suppose some other salts. It usually gives a gray finish on the part, though I have seen some colors. If you choose to make your own I think it important to get the ferrOcyanide.
A fellow named Oscar Gaddy made quite a study of color case hardening and published it in The Double Gun Journal. Part I was Winter 1996 and Part II Spring 1997. If you can handle a nearly 6KB pdf I can send them to you.
His article is a mix of science and art. The colors apparantly come from the tri-calcium phosphate in the bone charcoal. If you want to cheat a bit, get yourself some tri-calcium phosphate & put it in the quench water.
Doug Turnbull makes a living color casehardening guns these days, in part restoring fine old double guns and Winchesters.
Anyway, read those Double Gun Journal articles for an education in this matter.

[JCKelly]

Post Scriptum

Back in 1996 Mr. Gaddy bought his wood charcoal from Berger Brothers, Chicago, Illinois and his bone charcoal from Ebonex Corporation, Melvindale, Michigan.

[Acer Saccharum]

Thanks for the info, JC. Interesting tip about adding tri-calcium phosphate to the quench.