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Roy J
 
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Default Heat treating 4130 steel at home

A sway bar is going to be a stinker to do in a home shop. 3'
long, several bends, possibly tube/bar combination. You need a
furnace big enough to hold the entire part at 1700 degrees or so,
then drop into an oil bath. Bar parts should be dropped into the
bath end first to minimize distortion and anomilies from one side
of the round to the other. So you will need something like a 30
gallon barrel on it's side for a furnace with a propane burner
plus another 30 gallon barrel with your quench medium.

Your heat treat specs are at http://www.matweb.com/index.asp?ckck=1
key in '4130' select the size and specs you need.

You might also want to look at 4140. Similar properties, a bit
more forgiving on the heat treat but typically wants an oil quench.

Be sure to design the bar with multiple holes in the end so you
can select a range of firmness without doing a new bar.

Other posters mentioned the safety issue: 4130 can be pushed to
some truely phenominal streght numbers. I've done tubing
assemblies over 200,000psi tensile with reasonable ductility. The
downside is that 4130 has a fairly narrow band between tensile
and yield. If the heat treat is not dead on, it tends to snap
with no warning. Not to mention the issues of surface finish,
stress risers, nicks and scratches, and warpage.

Cheers.

John Olson wrote:

Is it possible to heat-treat 4130 CroMo steel at home? Does anyone know of
an online reference that explains the process? I've got a kiln big enough
to do hold the piece, and it runs to over 1200 deg C. I'm looking at
building an anti-sway bar for a car I'm making, and I may have to make more
than one to get the values right.

Cheers

John



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