"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote in message
...

"Don Foreman" wrote in message
...

Guy Lautard (a Canadian) addresses case -hardening in one (or more)
of his Bedside Readers. I think one method was using bone meal in a
"muffle" comprised of a piece of iron pipe. This could be done in a
charcoal fire.

Bone meal and barium carbonate (for, I think, color hardening). Barium
carbonate may be had fairly inexpensively from some ceramics shops, and
from
most pyrotechnic chemicals dealers, like Skylighter.com and Firefox.com

LLoyd

Barium carbonate is one of several chemicals that act as an activator,
greatly increasing the rate of carbon diffusion. Case hardening can be
done without an activator, but it takes long furnace times for a significant
case depth to develope.

Randy