What would happen if----?

[Michael]

I have a lock that I made from scratch. Some of the parts are made from mild steel (1018), and some are made from wrought iron. The springs are finished and everything is fitted and polished. The next step is to case harden all the pieces.

Here's the problem. I do all my case hardening in my forge BUT my slack tub is frozen solid. I really don't want to deal with trying to thaw the water in the tub or fight with a hose or trying to get another water container out there to quench the parts. I started thinking. Would I get the same results if I cooked the parts the normal way in the crucible and then took it out of the fire and just let everything cool down to room temperature or dump the parts and let them cool off.

The parts have still absorbed carbon from the case hardening the only difference is they have not been dumped into water to make them hard. Would I get the same results if the parts were reheated individually and quenched? Any reason this wouldn't work?


Michael

[Acer Saccharum]

You'll still have a high carbon skin on the parts, but they won't be hard. It's the quench that hardens the high carbon steel. A slow cool will leave the parts in the annealed condition.

You can quench in a 5 gal PLASTIC bucket, if you put a screen at the bottom to catch the parts.

I would not drop the entire crucible in.

[keweenaw]

Complete ditto of the above.  Cooling in the crucible will give dead soft annealed parts.  Just a screen in the bottom of the bucket to catch the parts.

Tom

[Jim Kibler]

Michael,

The process you described above will work.  The only consideration is that you may get a little bit of surface scale if you heat in open air during the re-heat and quench process.

[Acer Saccharum]

Duh, I didn't read your post completely, Michael.

Yes, you can individually reheat and quench. Be careful on the reheat to not remove carbon from the surface. Maybe use an acetylene rich torch, or charcoal fire, something that won't suck the carbon out.

Tom

[J.D.]

Still gotta quench the parts, which means that you will have to go through the time and trouble to reheat and quench each part, individually. Is it more time efficient to fill a 5 gal bucket to quench all of your parts, at once, or reheat and quench individually?

God bless

[dannybb55]

Considering the forge and bench time invested, deal with each part as a separate heat, The carbon is already there so all you have to do is the tempering....and not lose the parts. The question is WWEKD?

[Michael]

Thanks everyone for your input. My forge is on the far side of two horse paddocks which are now nothing but mud. My intention is to reheat the parts in the shop with an oxy/acetylene torch with a rich acetylene mixture and quench in a 5 gallon bucket. The parts that need to be drawn back I can do in the usual manner.


Michael

[J Shingler]

If the problem is just the frozen slack tub why not heat up scrap pc of iron and throw it in the tub. A time or two and you should be good to go, no?