[TheForge] oil temps (one more time)

[Steve Bloom]

At 06:27 PM 11/20/2010, James Binnion wrote:

> > [snip]As you heat them to extreme temperatures over
> > prolonged time periods they are going to change structure from
> > oxidation and evaporation etc and you will have a different oil than
> > when you started. I don't really know what all the changes would do
> > but I bet you will have to change oil fairly often. [snip]

and then Andrew Vida  chimed in:

[snip]spend the money and get the proper tools for doing the job.[big snip]

While all of this may be true -- I'm in the 'proof-of-concept' stage. 
Based on my experience with 1050 & 1065 and water-quench using a 
partial clay coat, cracking is a distinct possibility. To forestall 
that, normalization, even heat for austenization, warm water quench 
and a tempering bath with rapid heat  transfer is the target.  Since 
I don't want to make a 36" long hot salt bath, I'm exploring using 
oil as a tempering medium - not for quenching.  The oil  will go bad 
eventually but it is not being exposed to anything that a deep  fryer 
doesn't hand out. If there experiment works out, then the 
higher-priced  spread might be worth exploring. Realistically, we're 
talking about a
couple of times a year use to make what will be effectively a 
non-commercial item, so it's 'dipping-the-toe-in-first'. With the $24 
for oil, I'm into the oil bath for probably $35 and my time - and 
since I'm gainfully unemployed (retired), time I have.

I appreciate the comments (well, some of them <grin>) and will post 
results as they happen.

Steve