"R. O'Brian" wrote in message
news:AdoVe.25143$hp.21970@lakeread08...
"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" wrote in
message
...

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.

Pete -- you sent email, but when I replied, it bounced. so...

Pete, you really should check out Guy Lautard's "The Machinist's Bedside
Reader" series. In one of them, he lists in _complete_ detail how to make
one's own peach-pit charcoal, and the complete formula and process for
in-shop case-hardening. The one article is worth the price.

I _think_ the article is called "The Bullseye Mixture", but I may be
confusing that with another in the same series of books.

Lloyd