Making your own quenchant...

[JasonSCarter]

Piggy backing on Tai's Canola Thread, I wonder if anyone's ever made there own version of an industrial quenchant? Guy's I;m very hesitant to post, but it seems the "my quenchant is better than yours" voices, have been, well...quenched, on that thread and would like the same respect paid here please ... so here goes, Like most of you I too used Canola in the early years, and was very happy with it, at the time. as I progressed I of course went the "real" quenchant way, but have recently tried something else, and I;d like your opinion on it. I call it "Hillbilly 50" as it's VERY fast, and works great for me and my methods. YMMV Recipe is as follows. I have a 2.5 gal quench tank...
1 gal of Kerosene, (Old Industrial Quenchant)
3qt of food grade mineral oil (another older industrial quenchant)
8oz of Blue Dawn dish soap (as a surfactant)
4.4oz bottle of Jet Dry (as a wetter)

I generally use W1, W2, and 1095, occasionally 1084. and I'm getting FABULOUS results from it. it smokes to high heaven and have even had the smoke combust trying to do an interrupted quench, so wear all safety equipment and ghave the local FD on speed dial, if you try this recipe...
Have any of you tried to make your own before and if so, how'd ya do it?

Jason S. Carter

 

[Rick Marchand]

I would be scared to death to make my own quenchant.... especially with kerosene. Did you give any consideration to harmful vapor? I am intersted in the thought process involved.

I know very little about chemistry outside my "experimental youth" period.

 

[12345678910]

I believe that one of the Dr. Jim H books had different mix your own recipe in them.

Maybe even some old books I've read too - like the ones from the Internet Archive website..

 

[Seals]

Im scared to death of fires already.Kerosene base just sounds too risky flame wise to me even if the results are better.

 

[JasonSCarter]

I would be scared to death to make my own quenchant.... especially with kerosene. Did you give any consideration to harmful vapor? I am intersted in the thought process involved.

yes I did think about vapors. prior quenching in ATF/Motor oil, I learned to stand upwind to stay away from the smoke. My forge is located outside, with a large gravel bed so I;m not real concerned with setting the place on fire with it. My quench tank is a capped steel 4 inch pipe welded to an old chevy truck brake drum so it's pretty stable. but just as J.I.C., It's also bailing wired to a cool part of my forge. so I have almost 0 chance of spillage, or knock over. (I have to think of these things ahead of time, as I am an uber klutz ) Kerosene isnt nearly as flammable as Gasoline infact it's really a cleaner form of Diesel oil. (My brothers regularly switch between diesel and kero in their trucks depending on which is cheapest.) there is very little flame up USUALLY. that said you have to be conscience of a few things, to avoid flare ups. where is the fill level of the quenchant? if it is more than a few inches from the top the fumes will ignite, and a ball of fire will erupt. however as long as the quenchant is w/i 2 inches of the top, once you take the cap off, the fumes escape (chimney effect) and you may quench with only a minor flare up, if any at all.

I know very little about chemistry outside my "experimental youth" period.

I didn't have that period in my youth, my dad was the local small town marshall. So my time was spent on more pyrotechnical pursuits lol!

I guess I should also go into why I picked a Kero Base/Mineral Oil Base. After much reading of Quenchant MSDS sheets, translating those LONG 15 syllable words, the closest thing I could come up with to the "Petroleum distillates" was Kerosene. not to mention that when I quench using my houghton or Amoco quenchants, my nose detects Kero in the mix. Also at a recent hammer in a fabled steel baron brought in some quenchant he had, had made up, I noticed a heavy kero smell there as well and asked a few other smith's "in the know" and they agreed Kero is and was a FAST steel quenchant used in very old times. so I was emboldened to try it out from there. After thinking of and taking all the heretofor mentioned precautions. I found the recipe for "SuperQuench" It's base is water, and can put a case hardening on mild steel into the mid RC40's! on 1018! anyway, I took those ingrediants in it, and substituted Kero and Mineral oil, slowing down the quench time by using an oil, instead of water. to make it suitable for high carbon steels. you can slow it down or speed it up by varying the amount of kero (more speeds it up to a degree) or more MO slows it down to a degree. Plain ole Mineral oil is GREAT for 5160 and O1 BTW, but thats another thread lol. anyway Hope that answers the why...

Jason S. Carter

 

[mgysgthath]

Sounds like a good idea, I may try that out one day.

 

[daizee]

I think this is really interesting, BUT:

I tried 'goop' and destroyed 3 early blades. Very unhappy, and completely unnecessary.
The problem with mixtures is they are uncalibrated. You have no idea what the cooling curve is, and you can't compare to anyone else's mixture accurately either. At least with canola we're all using more or less similar stuff, so there are a lot of data to look at. Not only that, but canola has been scientifically evaluated as a quenchent (and base for motor lube!) compared to other products.

So I think the idea is neat, but I don't really see the value in it, having personally experienced the trade-offs of wasted time and unduplicatable results. The value of canola and engineered quenchents is their known behavior. (and canola isn't toxic or as flammable as many!)

-Daizee

 

[BMK]

There are probably several hundred different liquids and combinations of liquids that can be effectively used to lower the temperature of a hot chunk of steel. Some of those liquids are specially formulated quenchants. I am sure you have developed a very good quenchant based on your (independent) investigation and experimentation.

BTW - If you are worried about starting a fire, test the quenchant outside with nothing flammable overhead.

 

[kc custom]

When I was banging away on steel I made all sorts of concoctions for quench. When I started doing air quench I was
ecstatic to try something new, dry ice and alcohol, LN, plates, and eventually frozen plates. If I did everything as a robot
we wouldn't need knifemakers because all results would be perfectly consistent-maybe not so much. Have a ball with it,
be as safe as you can, and get the biggest following possible.
Ken.

 

[PSD]

I just hardened some 4140 and just used drain oil to quench. I was making rollers for a band saw, after hardening I tempered them to 50RC and finish machined them. Came out real nice but then again it was not knife material.