and also a way of identifying what carbon steel Ive got, the store selling
said it was drill rod, but they didnt know any more then that.

Reyd Dorakeen wrote:

and also a way of identifying what carbon steel Ive got, the store selling
said it was drill rod, but they didnt know any more then that.

Heat a piece of it red hot then plonk it into a can of oil. Test
hardness with a file. The file should skate off the piece if it is fully
hardened. Try the same act with a can of water. If it is water
hardening, it will not be as hard as it can get if quenched in oil. If
it is oil hardening, it may split when quenched in water, though not
reliably. :-)

Once it's hardened, you temper it by heating it in an oven, or polish
it a bit and heat it slowly with a torch. You can roughly judge the
temperature by the change in color. Once the desired color is reached,
quench it in water to stop the temper ing from going any further.

That's the real short version.

Cheers
Trevor Jones

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 03:05:34 +0000, Reyd Dorakeen wrote:

and also a way of identifying what carbon steel Ive got, the store selling
said it was drill rod, but they didnt know any more then that.

http://www.key-to-steel.com/Articles/Art12.htm Is a good site about metal
and alot of things related to it .. (This is a direct link to hardening
steel and if im not mistaking it takes up tempering it also)

Assuming it is not HSS:

Heat to beyond magnetic, quench in water or oil and place in a 350 degree
oven for 1 hour.

HSS drill rod is not heat-treatable in the ordinary home shop. Most drill
rod and steel stock we see advertised in catalogs is ordinary "carbon" steel
and is heat treatable. Generally, steel including drill rod, comes with
instructions for heat treatment. W-1 (water hardening) is the best choice
for home shop use.

Bob Swinney
"Reyd Dorakeen" wrote in message
...
and also a way of identifying what carbon steel Ive got, the store selling
said it was drill rod, but they didnt know any more then that.

Reyd

If you've got real good ventilation, you could case harden it. My
grandfather, who grew up as a blacksmith, used to do that occasionally
to carbon steel. Get some sodium cyanide pellets, put them in a sturdy
metal pan and melt them (traditionally you set them in the forge, but he
used a propane torch - melts at 568 deg. C according to my "Handbook of
Chemistry and Physics"). Stick the piece to be hardened in and let sit.
Rule of thumb is 1/32" of depth per minute (though I think it hits a
diffusion limit around 8-10 minutes). Be careful, cyanide is toxic and
molten salts are tricky to work with. My grandfather was pretty casual
about doing it, but he grew up in the era of lineshafts and expendable
oil punks (the kids that crawled around in the rafters and oiled the
bearings while things were running - if they got tangled up in the
belts, you just got another one).

Jim

the store couldnt tell me.
Assuming it is not HSS:

Heat to beyond magnetic, quench in water or oil and place in a 350 degree
oven for 1 hour.

HSS drill rod is not heat-treatable in the ordinary home shop. Most drill
rod and steel stock we see advertised in catalogs is ordinary "carbon" steel
and is heat treatable. Generally, steel including drill rod, comes with
instructions for heat treatment. W-1 (water hardening) is the best choice
for home shop use.

Bob Swinney
"Reyd Dorakeen" wrote in message
...
and also a way of identifying what carbon steel Ive got, the store selling
said it was drill rod, but they didnt know any more then that.

"Reyd Dorakeen" wrote in message
...
the store couldnt tell me.
Assuming it is not HSS:

If the store can't tell you, then it's not high-speed steel. In fact, you'll
be lucky if it's really drill rod, and not plain cold-rolled mild steel. Is
it ground on the outside, or just dull silver?

Do you have a bench grinder? If so, someone here probably can direct you to
a site that illustrates spark tests to determine steel grades. The standard
grades aren't hard to tell apart.

Ed Huntress

just silver, it says on the reciept carbon steel drill rod, so if it isn't,
I think I can take it back. would a belt sander do instead of the grinder?
in article , Ed Huntress at
wrote on 3/17/04 10:13 PM:

"Reyd Dorakeen" wrote in message
...
the store couldnt tell me.
Assuming it is not HSS:

If the store can't tell you, then it's not high-speed steel. In fact, you'll
be lucky if it's really drill rod, and not plain cold-rolled mild steel. Is
it ground on the outside, or just dull silver?

Do you have a bench grinder? If so, someone here probably can direct you to
a site that illustrates spark tests to determine steel grades. The standard
grades aren't hard to tell apart.

Ed Huntress

"Reyd Dorakeen" wrote in message
...
would a belt sander do instead of the grinder?

If it throws sparks. Got a Dremel?

Tim

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"Reyd Dorakeen" wrote in message
...
just silver, it says on the reciept carbon steel drill rod, so if it
isn't,
I think I can take it back. would a belt sander do instead of the
grinder?

It's probably not fast enough.

If you want to assume they're right, and that it's plain carbon steel, you
shouldn't have much trouble hardening it.

There is a lot of odd stuff on the market today, with all of the imports,
but just be aware that plain-carbon-steel drill rod, once the most common
type, became less common than the alloyed, oil-hardening type around the
1970s. So people here may be wondering what you really have.

Anyway, if you have enough of it to sacrifice a 1-inch chunk for a test, you
can try the heat-and-quench test that someone described here, I think. If
it's not really drill rod, it won't get hard. If it gets really hard, you
have drill rod, but you don't know which type.

At that point I'd assume they're telling you straight that it's
plain-carbon, and treat it as a water-hardening steel. I think you've gotten
some directions here for doing that.

Ed Huntress