Parks 50 ... Over Heat

bobbywett

bobbywett

Joined
Jul 23, 2006
Messages
1,231
Hi Guys,

I use an old rival 18 qt warmer to pre-heat my quenchant to anywhere from 100 -130 degrees prior to quench. After quenching a bowie blade this weekend, i forgot to unplug the warmer and the parks 50 rose to 380 degrees according to the thermometer. Smoke was all over the shop I quickly unplugged the warmer and opened the doors to air out.

Did I harm my quenchant? Did I destroy its cooling properties and do I need too chuck it and by more?

Thanks for any responses,

Bobby
 
Yes, call Maxim. I believe that Parks 50 is designed to be used at ambient temperatures. No need to heat it.
 
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The oil is likely fine, but you might have come close to burning your shop down.

Thanks Don

It wouldn't be the first time I almost went up in smoke. On more than one occasion, I've caught my buffing wheels on fire.
 
..Right now I have to warm mine, ambient room temp is about 10° in the shop until we turn the heat on..:p Lisa quenches pretty much all her strikers in parks and heats it to about 90° but these are 1/4" sections shes hardening. We have tried it at 60° or so it and it would not "fully" harden such thick sections..They would be hard but "not right" as far as throwing sparks..After a few thousand of them things she has the heat treat dialed in pretty good for them..
besides in the summer ambient room temp in the shop is above 90°..Ive checked the temp on the oil plenty of times after setting in the scalding hot shop and it would be above 90°.
I kinda doubt you harmed it but you may have blackened the crap out of it..
 
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We have tried it at 60° or so it and it would not "fully" harden such thick sections..

Kentucky,

I take my beveles down to .030 -.040 before heat treating in Parks 50 ... so I heat my oil up to around 100 -130 degrees because of how thin the sections are.
 
I guess I should have been more specific about ambient temp. I forget that ambient is different depending where you are and what season it is. I do more forging in the spring, summer and fall so ambient for me is between 65˚ and 95˚.
 
I'm pretty sure my ambient temperature is hovering in the low 20 degrees until i heat the shop up with my Perfection Kerosene Heaters. After about a few hours the oil is around 50 degrees or so.
 
The original question was if he hurt the oil by heating to 380 degrees.
No - you didn't.
You put 1500 degree steel in it and it doesn't hurt it one bit.

On the other note where this thread evolved to - during a particular hot spell in the summer of 2012 in Illinois we had a string of over 100 degree days where it barely cooled off any at night.
I took my laser thermometer out into the shop one afternoon and my power hammer and anvils' mass was 100 degrees. It was f***ing hot.
Also, my oil tanks were 100 degrees, which is well over what folks here are calling "ambient temperature".
So, I figured if oil can make it to 100 degrees all on its own, I would just heat my #50 to 100 for every quenching cycle.
That way I had my bases covered as far as a consistent quench temp goes.

I'm sure it got just as hot in other places around the country as well.
Food for thought.
 
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The original question was if he hurt the oil by heating to 380 degrees.
No - you didn't.
You put 1500 degree steel in it and it doesn't hurt it one bit.

Duh? Sometimes I just don't give things enough thought.

Thanks Karl
 
i4Marc said:
Yes, call Maxim. I believe that Parks 50 is designed to be used at ambient temperatures. No need to heat it.
Click to expand...
"Ambient" down to 70F. Even in Florida, I still have to give it a little bump a couple of weeks out of the year. With that said, 130-140 is too hot. 120F is as warm as it should be used IIRC.
 
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