Was-Looking for some basic HSS info, now blacksmith annealing rates
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Was-Looking for some basic HSS info, now blacksmith annealing rates spaco 12-22-2006
Posted by spaco on December 22, 2006, 8:16 pm
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Trevor Jones just made an appropriate comment about blacksmiths not
being able to anneal (or normaalize) high alloy tool steels.

Since many old blacksmiths talk about putting parts into the ash bucket
to anneal them, I did a little study of "the ash bucket" a couple of
years ago and here are the results (text and an inbedded graph):

http://www.spaco.org/AnnealingSteelInTheAshBucket.doc

I just won an auction bid for a bucket of vermiculite (at our annual
conference) and I intend to test it in a similar way one of these days,
but haven't gotten "a round toit" yet.

Pete Stanaitis
---------------------

Posted by Rusty_iron on December 22, 2006, 9:05 pm
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Pete,
That was most informative. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to
share.
I'd be interested to know if using lime instead of ash makes any
difference to the cooling rate?

If the size of your ash drum was increased, do you think the cooling
rate would change much? I'm wondering if more insulation would have
much of an effect?

Regards
Rusty_iron


Posted by spaco on December 23, 2006, 7:19 pm
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I personally don't think lime would help much. With 5 pounds of steel,
the ashes themselves soak a lot of heat away pretty quickly, so I think
that more insulation around the ash bucket wouldn't help very much
either, in that high end range (1500 to 1000 degrees F). But, if the
parts were loosely wrapped in kaowool directly, you'd have a very
different story.
Another "old blacksmith" annealing process:
Get your "Round Oak Heater" going real well, stoke it with half dry oak
or hickory and then put your already-heated-to-nonmagnetic parts into
the middle of the fire. Close down the draft and let 'er go out.

Personally, I make a real nice fire in the coal forge, anneal my parts
inside a piece of water pipe wherein I place a thermocouple. When the
parts are thoroughly soaked at the temp I want, I shut off the blast,
cover the whole thing with coke and cover that with fiberglass
insulation and go away for the rest of the day.
Haven't tested that one yet, but works fine on 5160 and Does soften
S7 to some degree.

Pete Stanaitis
----------------------

Rusty_iron wrote:
> Pete,
> That was most informative. Thanks for taking the time and trouble to
> share.
> I'd be interested to know if using lime instead of ash makes any
> difference to the cooling rate?
>
> If the size of your ash drum was increased, do you think the cooling
> rate would change much? I'm wondering if more insulation would have
> much of an effect?
>
> Regards
> Rusty_iron
>

Posted by Prometheus on December 23, 2006, 7:19 am
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wrote:

>Trevor Jones just made an appropriate comment about blacksmiths not
>being able to anneal (or normaalize) high alloy tool steels.
>
>Since many old blacksmiths talk about putting parts into the ash bucket
>to anneal them, I did a little study of "the ash bucket" a couple of
>years ago and here are the results (text and an inbedded graph):
>
>http://www.spaco.org/AnnealingSteelInTheAshBucket.doc
>
>I just won an auction bid for a bucket of vermiculite (at our annual
>conference) and I intend to test it in a similar way one of these days,
>but haven't gotten "a round toit" yet.

A helpful article- I confess to thinking that I might make a bucket of
kitty litter or similar work, but it looks like that's not a
reasonable alternative.

Luckily, the majority of the M2 I've got will work for the intended
use after some simple grinding to shape. It'll be a lot of grinding,
but considering the cost of finished HSS tooling, I think I can make
that a cost-effective project when it comes to turning chisels.

Posted by Steve Smith on December 23, 2006, 10:14 am
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Pete, this is great. Thanks a lot.

Steve

spaco wrote:

> Trevor Jones just made an appropriate comment about blacksmiths not
> being able to anneal (or normaalize) high alloy tool steels.
>
> Since many old blacksmiths talk about putting parts into the ash
> bucket to anneal them, I did a little study of "the ash bucket" a
> couple of years ago and here are the results (text and an inbedded
> graph):
>
> http://www.spaco.org/AnnealingSteelInTheAshBucket.doc
>
> I just won an auction bid for a bucket of vermiculite (at our annual
> conference) and I intend to test it in a similar way one of these
> days, but haven't gotten "a round toit" yet.
>
> Pete Stanaitis
> ---------------------

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