How do you make your own bone charcoal/leather charcoal?

[Rolf]

Planing to experiment abit with color casehardening and want to make my own charcoal. I can find lots of info on wood charcoal, but nothing on bone charcoal.
Has anyone tried this?

Best regards
Rolf

[WadePatton]

Exactly the way I make char cloth.  Or hickory/any wood charcoal.  

It's just partially burned product.  Fully burned is white ashes.

I use a small metal container (with a small hole or two in it) in a fire or wood stove, you can monitor it or leave it alone.  I've not done it much, but never had a failure.  Black is success, unblack needs more cookin', ashes means you went too far.

If i recall correctly (IIRC), when the fumes/flames pouring out the hole burn out (wood gas yo) then it's cooked.

Not real technical, but maybe that helps.

I crush them in a large stone mortar and pestle, when required.

MOF I used straight leather trimmings to color some metal once, just put them in "raw" and it worked great. Was experimenting.

[smart dog]

Hi Rolf,
Wade's method seems reasonable for bone or leather, it will likely smell really bad however, as it roasts.  Here is another formula right out of "Espingarda Perfeyta", a gunsmith's manual published in 1713 by 3 Portuguese brothers"

"In order to temper iron, however soft it may be, so that it may become hard as steel itself, the most common and easy secret that there is, is to roast some ox-hooves on the fire, without their taking light, and when they are cold to hammer them, and add to them as much salt, and one part of chimney soot.  All must be well crushed and put together in a vessel, (do this next part after a few beers) and then on this is poured enough urine in order to incorporate all of it.  And let this advice be taken, that the older this mixture be the greater is its force and activity (yeehaw)."

dave

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

The way I make the bone/leather charcoal is to use a medium sized lead melting pot (cleaned out of course).  I seal it with a flat steel plate across the top of the pot.  For leather I use just scraps on hand.  For bone I use bone meal from the garden store, already dried and coarse ground.  Heat it outside until the smoke stops (bad smell), then remove from the heat.  Let it cool completely before opening the lid.  I use an electric hot plate stovetop cooker for the heat source.

I use 1/3 each of bone, leather, wood charcoal.  I don't get colors, but it does a good job of case hardening.  I use the same pot & lid for the hardening.  I do let the contents cool after cooking them for about an hour.  Then I reheat each part and quench.  One time I tried dumping the entire red hot pot contents into water (charcoal & parts together), when the scalds & blisters healed I decided not to do that again.

Jim

[Mark Elliott]

Jim,

If you don't get colors, why bother with the bone and leather?   Otherwise carbon is carbon,  and the wood would be fine by itself.   

[greybeard]

Go down to  your local pet supply and get a bag of charcoal that's is for fish tank filters.
They say that it is pure. No muss no fuss!!
      Bob

[smart dog]

Guys,

The way I make the bone/leather charcoal is to use a medium sized lead melting pot (cleaned out of course).  I seal it with a flat steel plate across the top of the pot.  For leather I use just scraps on hand.  For bone I use bone meal from the garden store, already dried and coarse ground.  Heat it outside until the smoke stops (bad smell), then remove from the heat.  Let it cool completely before opening the lid.  I use an electric hot plate stovetop cooker for the heat source.

I use 1/3 each of bone, leather, wood charcoal.  I don't get colors, but it does a good job of case hardening.  I use the same pot & lid for the hardening.  I do let the contents cool after cooking them for about an hour.  Then I reheat each part and quench.  One time I tried dumping the entire red hot pot contents into water (charcoal & parts together), when the scalds & blisters healed I decided not to do that again.

Jim

Jim,
You have to add urine.  Everything is better with pee.   

[Dphariss]

I often wonder if some of the old "instructions" were actually real or were intended to confuse people not part of the Guild.

Dan

[44-henry]

Jim,

If you don't get colors, why bother with the bone and leather?   Otherwise carbon is carbon,  and the wood would be fine by itself.   

Wood charcoal by itself in the casehardening process would work, but the bone charcoal added to the pack would serve as an energizer. The purpose of the energizer is to assist in the formation of carbon monoxide in the pack, the bone in this instance acts as an energizer due to its calcium content and while it is not a particularly effective energizer by modern standards, it is still better than nothing at all.

[jerrywh]

 I have case hardened for probably 50 years and have found that just plain wood charcoal will do as good as any combination.
Adding bone and other ingredients will change the appearance some but good colors can be had with plain charcoal.
 Go to the local garden supply and buy some bone meal. You will need a few pounds. Put it in some kind of container and heat it to at least 1000° for three or four hours. If you don't burn out all the oil and stuff you will not get good colors. You can do plain case hardening with it raw but it will stink like mad.  You will hear all kinds of formulas about ingredients from people many of them from people who have only read about it. There is more false information on case hardening out there than any other subject, with the possible exception of spring tempering and making than any thing I know of.
 Heck-- you can case harden with nothing but plain dry grass. The truth is this. The colors have less to do with the ingredients of the pack but mostly how the steam forms around the part being quenched. The temperature of the part when quenched effects the formation of the steam around the part. That is why better colors are achieved at lower temperatures For example around 1250°.  But the lower temperatures will not produce the hardness that a quench temp. of 1550° F will. One must very the procedure to obtain the desired effect.
 In days of old craftsmen used what was readily available. There were thousands of blacksmiths and therefore hoof filings and such were easily obtained for nothing that is why these type ingredient formulas were passed down. The same for leather scraps and such.
    PS Making your own charcoal is a big money loosing proposition. Not my goal. I get charcoal from Brownell. It cost about $50.00 for a 5 gal bucket. The first lock pays for that. the rest is free.

[flatsguide]

Jerry, thanks for that write up. 'Tis a black art me thinks :-)
Richard

[smart dog]

Hi,
You guys know I am kidding about the pee, right?  It is just I love those old metallurgical recipes.  So many involved pee.

dave

[Rolf]

   PS Making your own charcoal is a big money loosing proposition. Not my goal. I get charcoal from Brownell. It cost about $50.00 for a 5 gal bucket. The first lock pays for that. the rest is free.

Brownell Norway, charges  $110 for a 5 gal bucket of wood charcoal and $270 for a 5 gal bucket of bone charcoal.  Way too expensive for me. Only plan to do a couple of guns for myself.
I have a heat treating oven, so I only need the charcoal and a crucible. I have birch wood for free and can get beef bones at the local slaughter house. I would have like to try bone meal, but I can't find it in Norway.

Thinking about degreasing bones by cooking in dishwashing soap before burning. Use to do that when cleaning bones for anatomical studies at the veterinarian college. Do think that would work, or would it contaminate the charcoal?

Best regards
Rolf

[smart dog]

Hi Rolf,
Maybe try just boiling the bones.  Another way to degrease them is to soak them for a day or so in kerosene, then let them air dry for a few days.  I do that for bone inlays because it really gets rid of the fats and oils that can seep into wood and rot it. Boiling makes bone brittle and difficult to work but in your case that is not an issue.  Also Rolf, you can use leather from old shoes and other discarded leather objects in addition to bone.

dave

[WadePatton]

If you can't find old bones in the woods or those the dogs have worked over for many months as I do and must start with fresh bones, I'd suggest burying them for a while such that soil microbes and such could clean 'em up for you.  Or if you have private access to bio-active water like a stream or pond, bag 'em up and let 'em soak for several weeks. Critters in there will clean 'em up too.

[jerrywh]

 Go out to your local forest fire and pick up some charcoal.
 Sounds like you are trying to spend $200.00 to save $50.00

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-lbs-Pure-Virgin-Granular-Activated-Carbon-GAC-Coconut-Shell-Charcoal-/191528222543

[Rolf]

Go out to your local forest fire and pick up some charcoal.
 Sounds like you are trying to spend $200.00 to save $50.00

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-lbs-Pure-Virgin-Granular-Activated-Carbon-GAC-Coconut-Shell-Charcoal-/191528222543

What I want to do is, colorcase harden parts I am colecting the one Hawkens rifle I plan to build for myself. Paying $380 for 5gal wood charcoal + 5gal bone charcoal seems a waste. I'd probably never use up more than 1 gal of wood charcoal and 1/2 gal bone charcoal. Would not mind paying Brownells price per gal, if them sold it in 1gal  and 1/2 gal containers.  I'll take a stab at making it myself. If it doesn't work out, I'll stick to rust bluing.

Nice price on the eBay charchoal, $21 for 4lbs. Problem is that they charge $62 to shipe the 4 lbs to Norway.

Best regards
Rolf

[jerrywh]

 rolf.
   Not everybody knew you were in Norway. You really don't need bone charcoal to color case harden. I have done several locks with nothing but wood charcoal and the  came out just fine. Good clean wood charcoal will work real well.

[bob in the woods]

Here in Canada, [ Ontario ]  I can buy good charcoal made from hard maple at just about any hardware store.  I've used bags of it for forging , and even did a charcoal blue job on a pistol barrel just to see how it would turn out. Buying high priced "special" charcoal seems a waste to me.

[BJH]

If you live in a rural enough location, pack a metal container with small wood scraps over it tightly with a lid. Build a fire and put the container in it. Add more wood to the fire and burn it for several hours. When the fire burns out and the container is cool you should have char coal in the container, along with some incompletely coaled wood. This process is a bit wasteful of wood but if the wood is free or cheap, what the heck. Bjh