[TheForge] Steel substitution

[Dave Brown]

At 12:17 01/17/02 -0800, you wrote:
>john,
>
>When I temper stuff, I look for oxide colors. Are you
>saying that you temper it to a glowing faint red (ala
>900 degrees) Could you be a bit more specific? This
>sounds very helpful.

"Temper at 1000 F to 1200 F for Rockwell C of 53 to 38. It is advisable to 
do a double temper by repeating the process and use 1 hour at temperature 
each time."

The Principal Metals site is a wealth of information for this kind of 
information.

I must admit, though, that I've never followed this instruction all that 
close.  What I've done as a compromise is to lay the finished chisel/punch 
down on top of my coal fire and let it lay there with the blower off.  I 
don't know how good the temper is by doing it this way, but my chisels seem 
to hold up and have not needed any redressing.