Miscellaneous Questions that have been stacking up....

Marion David Poff

Marion David Poff

Joined
Oct 8, 1998
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These are various questions that I have had lately, but have not answered, so I thought I would post them here....

Not trying to pick on anyone... But, what does magnetic North have to do with heat treating.

What does one hope to accomplish with a triple temper?

What is the story with tapping the anvil with the hammer?

How reliable is heat treating with a torch or conduction, judging by color?

Thank you,
Marion
 
Marion David Poff said:
These are various questions that I have had lately, but have not answered, so I thought I would post them here....

Not trying to pick on anyone... But, what does magnetic North have to do with heat treating.
nothing at all
What does one hope to accomplish with a triple temper?
some of the more complex alloys require more than one temper, for more on this look up retained austenite
What is the story with tapping the anvil with the hammer?
a habit picked up spending too much time with blacksmiths, when you spend all day hand forging everythird or fourth blow hitting the anvil to give yourself a breakand time to adjust the workpiece without breaking your rythm
How reliable is heat treating with a torch or conduction, judging by color?
not at all, the heat treating of steel is the most important part, do it right or don't do it at all
Thank you,
Marion
Click to expand...

Thanks,
Del
 
Well, I'll shoot a few answers off here....

Forging or heat treating to magnetic north....absolutely nothing. An old lore bit that has been passed down through generations. Could have originated from people trying to keep things as consistent as possible when it came to technique and lighting.

Triple temper....Triple temper or triple quench? For triple QUENCH, I'll leave that up to the more learned in THIS thread. Otherwise, triple tempering is for higher alloy steels. The first temper will convert retained austenite to martensite. That new martensite has to be tempered. The second temper can also create a bit of new martensite that must be tempered. Thus the third temper.

Tapping the hammer to the anvil during forging....gives your arm a real quick break and also helps establish/maintain a rhythm.

Heat treating by color....very, very iffy. Forging by color works fine. Heat treating usually involves more than color. Many use a magnet to give them an idea of where the temp is. Using eyes only for color is something that may have been done by expert smiths before other means of temp control, but with many of today's modern steels, you have to be more specific.

--nathan
 
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