[TheForge] quench questions

[Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer]

My fuzzy memory is that Rob G said he had used it for  A36 hammer dies 
and it yielded " Enormous toughness".......PF

Andrew Vida wrote:

>
>
> David E. Smucker wrote:
>
>> It is always a good discussion on "super" quench, (I wish it was 
>> called "rapid" quench, keeping in mind that there is no magic at work 
>> here.)  Best data I have seen to date is that with small section (1/2 
>> x 1/2 square A36) you can get to a Rc of 50 or so.  An that is 
>> without any drawing or tempering.
>
>
>     That would seem about right.  I've made quite a few tools from 
> A36... punches and chisels... and for the most part they have worked 
> well. Most I made as throw away tools, only to find that they were too 
> good to toss adter use, so they went into the handy bits bucket.  For 
> quick and dirty tooling, I don't think you can beat it.
>
>>
>> In large sections such as a hammer die or even a hammer die insert 
>> would someone please explain the physics on how you will quench this 
>> rapidly enough to get a hard surface let alone any depth of hardness. 
>
>
>     You may not be able to.  dies for a typical 25# hammer may work 
> out OK, but I'm not at all sure that anything bigger would.  The only 
> thing I can think of is if you had perhaps a couple hundred gallons of 
> the stuff, had an enclosed area with hose and pump, donned a space 
> suit and exposed the work to a violent jet of the medium, which I 
> would expect would harden to a case at best... maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of an 
> inch? But that might be just good enough. That's just a guess based on 
> what I know about the materials.  For all I know, it might fail 
> completely... or maybe do even better, though I doubt it.
>
> I agree with you that just using a good plain tool steel is probably a 
> much better bet.  4140 isn't that expensive, comparatively speaking, 
> and the headaches saved, I think, are well worth the few extra 
> dollars. Some things just are not worth rigging if you don't have to.
>
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