[TheForge] informal heat treat suggestions

[Grant Marcoux]

Mr. Pete:  While S-7 is air-hardening, S-1 is an oil-hardening shock
resistant grade.  When I make small tools such as you describe, where there
is no machining after heat treat, where surface decarb is an issue, I will
cover the piece with stainless foil.

Let the piece come to critical...small pieces have a real short soak
time...and quench, foil and all in oil.  When hearting for your quench,
allow steel to come up to temp slowly as you don't have much mass to resist
distortion from too rapid heating or quenching.

If you are using a propane forge, make an igloo inside the forge into which
the pieces will go.  When forge is heating, place pieces of hardwood
charcoal inside to act as an oxygen displacer.  Don't use coal or BBQ
briquettes.  When pieces come to low orange, quench in oil.  Be advised that
S-1 is about 50 points carbon, so it will not have the hardness of say, O-1,
when file tested.

I hope all is well with you

								Grant

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Peter Fels And
Phoebe Palmer
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2005 11:07 PM
To: Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: [TheForge] informal heat treat suggestions



> I'd be grateful for suggestions on a shade-tree methodology for heat
treating some small S1 steel forgings.
Ive got a couple dozen corkscrews ( wurms, properly speaking) all
forged up and formed with the little eyes punched out.(poor
widdle wurms!)
  Needless to say, there are a lot of heats ( wurms can be
infuriating to get right) and i don't know just how decarborized
they are at this point.
S1 is an air hardening steel and the small cross section means
that they will cool quite quickly, especially the tips.
Tempering also promises to be tricky because of the shape and taper.
Do i need to process all these wurms in a welded steel box?
Help'd be appreciated....Pete F
>
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