[TheForge] Re: Heat treating

[Mike Spencer]

> There are some plastics that have shape memory such as kydex used
> for tactical sheaths.  If you screw up the molding you can just
> reheat and it will go back to flat.

There are also shape memory alloys, although they're not ferrous.  You
may have heard of Nitinol(tm) that's been around since the 60s and was
reported on in (IIRC) the Whole Earth Review in the 70s.  Vascular
(i.e. blood vessel) stents are often made from Nitinol. Shape it,
compress it, insert it into the vessel and body heat causes it to
resume the original form to hold the blood vessel open.

There's been a lot of work done in the area in the last 50 years,
though.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape-memory_alloy

If you google for:

    "shape memory alloy" allen

you'l find frequent mention of fellow blacksmith Sam Allen, a
professor at MIT who has done work on these alloys.


Pretty exotic stuff  for the blacksmith shop, though. 

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^