Frank Fusco
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- 12,782
- Location
- Mountain Home, Arkansas
This is related to my question about blue tools but I'll make a separate question out of the issue.
When I'm working with parts for my traditional style muzzle loading rifles, hardening is often important. For example, the frizzen (striking part for a flintlock rifle) must be plenty hard. It is almost never known what kind, or quality, of steel was used to make a given frizzen. To harden, the technique I like is to coat the face with oil, cover that with Kasenite, clamp in a vice or hold with a pair of pliers over a can of water, then heat from the back with a torch until the whole thing turns as near yellow as your heat source can do, then quickly release and drop into the can of water. If there is a sorta explosive sound when it hits, you have gotten a good treatment and now have a hard, good sparking, frizzen. I also have heated a frizzen without the Kasenite and, when yellow, swirled into a can of old motor oil but that makes the part, sometimes, too brittle.
The question: will this technique work OK on turning tools of low quality to give them a hard cutting edge? Recommended?
When I'm working with parts for my traditional style muzzle loading rifles, hardening is often important. For example, the frizzen (striking part for a flintlock rifle) must be plenty hard. It is almost never known what kind, or quality, of steel was used to make a given frizzen. To harden, the technique I like is to coat the face with oil, cover that with Kasenite, clamp in a vice or hold with a pair of pliers over a can of water, then heat from the back with a torch until the whole thing turns as near yellow as your heat source can do, then quickly release and drop into the can of water. If there is a sorta explosive sound when it hits, you have gotten a good treatment and now have a hard, good sparking, frizzen. I also have heated a frizzen without the Kasenite and, when yellow, swirled into a can of old motor oil but that makes the part, sometimes, too brittle.
The question: will this technique work OK on turning tools of low quality to give them a hard cutting edge? Recommended?