A week or so ago i posted pics of a sword i made out of c1045 and quenched it in the gunters super quench. I had a cutting from the same piece of steel, i ground it down to the same thickness as the blade when i had quenched it. I then nomalized the blade, clayed it like the katana and quenched it. the only difference was the amount of clay i used. It was a little thinner on the cutting, than the katana blade. The place where i work has a rockwell tester and they tested it for me, the numbers are rc60 on the edge and the clay part on the spine was rc54. On the katana i did i suspect the number on the clay coating was lower because the clay was thicker. I forgot to mention after the quench i tempered the blades for half an hour at 350 f .
1045 rockwell test
- Thread starter neil g
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That's a really high mark for 1045, that super quench stuff must work mighty good.
Gunter's Super Quench is an interesting beast. The story as I've heard it is that Rob Gunter is a 'smith at Los Alamos Labs. When the OSHA guys came and asked what was in one container over there, he replied something along the lines of "that's my lye quench". The OSHA guys forced him to neutralize it immediately since having a big barrel of lye hanging around the shop was apparently a hazard
. So, what would YOU do at Los Alamos Labs if you had this problem? Rob worked with some of the other big brains out there and developed a recipe for a quenchant made completely from "safe" stuff that OSHA couldn't complain about.A link to some more info and the recipe for Super Quench can be found here.
It's basically a heavy brine quench with some wetting agents added (which I'm assuming helps reduce the vapor phase? Mete? Kevin?). I can't speak to the Anvilfire Guru's assertion that using ice water and quenching "extra hot" is a good idea. If anything wouldn't that serve to just harden the carbides in a structure of oversized grains? Sounds a lot like Stacy's glass packed with sand analogy....
Anyways, there's some more info on the Super Quench...
-d
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Quenching hotter will give you bigger grain size ! Both Dawn and Basic l are detergents [ surficants] maybe also containing anti foam properties .Yes a more effective brine. BTW the fastest brine is a 10 % solution of salt [NaCl] in water. It's not for everything , just low hardenability stuff like 1045.