Case Hardening Experiments Mod-Up

[hanermo]

There are excellent videos by clickspring on case hardening, on youtube, the latest 2 from the antikythera series.

He makes his own files !!!
Using mild steel, and hand tools only.
And does controlled tests on 3 rods, of different soak times, and 20 minutes was just right for file sized objects.

The material used was leather scrap charred, and a 6:4:3 mix of stuff, with a bit of water, and a clay pack.
Leather charcoal, plain flour, table salt, 6:4:3.

He also makes probably the best videos on Youtube, as in best.

&feature=youtu.be

I wonder if std charcoal could be used instead of leather/bonemeal etc ?

Need to test this, and fire up the grill today.
I think I am happy to put a clay-packed piece in the charcoal.

(Any excuse for a barbie).
Gotta get some steaks, first.

[Fergus OMore]

A bit of information. Use it or whatever.

My father was trained a few yards from where the German Sword Makers of Shotley Bridge had lived  on the banks of the River Derwent which flows into the River Tyne. Here swords were made by folding in wood carbon into white hot steel. Legend has  that a sword could be coiled for storage-- in a gentleman's top hat. Dad - as a blacksmith/farrier used hoof parings from the local horses, pit and otherwise! The other variant locally was dried human urine which was the second largest export and not shipbuilding as commonly believed. It does go bang and the only son of the architect who designed Newcastle Central Station was involved in an explosion in Gateshead and could only be his house keys.  He was related to 'Alice in Wonderland' or correctly Alice Pleasance Liddell-- one of the family. The other story is the need for urine from a ginger headed little boy- who was a virgin. Supply your own guesses but I wasn't ginger  but liberally pee'd into the quenching tank in the blacksmith's shop.

The other variant is the use of a useless slave by sticking a red hot bit of metal into his abdomen.  Presumably the fashion for 'barbies' can now be blamed on the Romans!.

Of course,  the old classic of tempering silver steel/ drill rod was sticking the hot end in a potato.

I'll get me coat

Norman

[vtsteam]

Hanermo, yup, posted in that thread earlier. Good stuff.

Norman, you are a fount of temperance nuggets!   

[fcheslop]

I Norm the old Butlers pension
My great uncle also a farrier used to use horse hoof clipping as a form of case hardening and I seem to remember him also using bone.
cheers
frazer

[vtsteam]

Yup, all well known pack hardening materials and methods.

Now the real hoped for purpose here in this thread was for any interested MadModders to experiment and post results in trying to find a quicker, cheaper, and easier (not requiring hours in a furnace) MadModder style solution to the fact that Kasenit is no longer available. Slow furnace case hardening methods and lore abound. Not so for homebrew  ten minute methods.

Though it was supposed to be a Mod-up style contest of backyard chemistry, er alchemy, with a time limit, I think that last was a mistake for this particular subject. It continues to be of interest, so why not have a go at it any time the mood takes?

I mean we all have unused bits of mild steel, and a simple experiment takes minutes, not hours. It was hoped that the old sugar hardening idea was viable, but so far that one hasn't been "cracked" yet. Perhaps there was a missing ingredient, or method involved in the reported successes with it. We'll never know unless people try.....

[gerritv]

I recently obtained some nitric acid so that I can see the depth of the case. Will add my experiments in a month. I will be trying Kasenite and sugar to be specific.

Gerrit

[Fergus OMore]

Norman, you are a fount of temperance nuggets!   

I nearly signed off with 'Call me Ishmael'  or even Cato!

Again ignoring the literary bent , I'm surprised at the seeming lack of knowledge about sugar. Sugar was an  out and out luxury and would hardly be used for casehardening. Honey, yes, possibly but I doubt it. I t does make great booze, however

[S. Heslop]

Arf. I missed this thread. Or maybe I forgot about reading it. Just posted it in another thread but i've got some potassium ferrocyanide on the way so i'll tell you how it goes. I like the suggestion of borax to help it stick, but judging from the melting temperature it might stick fine on its own.

[S. Heslop]

I'm pretty psyched, it works!

Regular potassium ferrocyanide didn't seem to do a whole lot but I suspect I might not have gotten it hot enough. But mixing it about half and half with charcoal hardened a small bit of mild steel enough to damage one side of my triangular file.

I'd like to test the case depth but I can't figure out how i'd cut the hardened steel without heating it.

[awemawson]

Gently (so not to over heat) grind the end to give  flat perpendicular to the axis,  then acid etch to see the depth of case

[S. Heslop]

Ah why didn't I think of that, using the bench grinder. I couldn't think beyond the angle grinder and cutoff disks.

I'm still a little concerned about cyanide poisoning through. When heating the parts with the stuff stuck on it seemed to be boiling off. But looking a bit more into it, it decomposes before it boils. An MSDS sheet I found states that decomposition products include hydrogen cyanide, where as another website suggests that it partly decomposes into potassium cyanide that would most likely end up in the quench water.

I think this working is exciting enough to make a short video about, but it'd be fairly irresponsible until i'm sure it's (relatively) safe. So i'm gonna try some tests for cyanide.

[vtsteam]

I saved a bag full of sour cherry pits from our Montmorency tree a couple weeks ago, wondering how they would work, ground to a powder in a SS foil pack. They could conceivably produce both carbon and CN.

[PekkaNF]

stumble upon on this one

[Will_D]

The correct salt to use is Potassium FERRI cyanide according to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_ferricyanide

"The compound is also used to harden iron and steel, in electroplating, dyeing wool, as a laboratory reagent, and as a mild oxidizing agent in organic chemistry."

This is the red salt, the yellow compound is the Ferro version

This may expalin the above posts!

Can anyone confirm this?

[fatal-exception]

Hey guys, I know this is about home brew case hardening experiments, but on the last McMaster Carr order I put in, I got a 1lb jar of Cherry Red. I have to say, it works like a charm (doesn't smell so good..) . I've done a bunch of mild steel parts and also some parts from 12L14. Nice thing is, there's no catastrophic cracking from quenching. 

[Will_D]

I need some nitric acid to check the case depth.

What strength acid is used to etc the steel?