QUENCHING IN RADIATOR COOLANT??

J

Jameson

Joined
Oct 3, 1998
Messages
294
I hafe never worked with a forge. Last time I worked with anything like one was in my arts class KILN back in the 8th grade. Long time ago. I have never made my own knife either. I am very knowledgable about knives, have a mediocre collection, read everthing I can get my hands on about knives, but cant figure it out.

I am an auto mechanic and It would jsut seem logical to quench blades in Coolant. You know radiator/antifreeze coolant, whatever you want to call it. Have you ever tried it? I know that it will boil out of the radiator which puts pressure on it. much like a pressure cooker something you want to cook in water or with water but you dont want to boil because the pressure prevents it from doing so?

ANy thoughts, experiments e.t.c. would bbe appreciated.

JC
 
Well, for one thing, ethylene glycol is poisonous. Very poisonous. Ingested or inhaled. Domestic animals are particularly at risk, as they like the sweet taste. So, you don't want a tank of poison in your work area.

Also, you should understand how ethylene glycol works: an osmotically active solute, like ethylene glycol, when added to water, causes freezing point depression and boiling point elevation. This is why you add it to your radiator; so it won't freeze solid in winter, and will withstand more heat, so it can cool your car better, in summer.

So why not run your car radiator with straight ethylene glycol? Because of specific heat. This is the amount of heat necessary to change the temperature of a given amount of liquid or solid. Ethylene glycol has a lower specific heat than water, so if it was circulating through your radiator, and the radiator cooled the ethylene glycol from, say 220 degrees, to 150 degrees, LESS HEAT has been removed from the ethylene glycol than if a mix of 50% ethylene glycol and water were cooled an equivalent amount. Needless to say, removing less heat from your engine is flirting with disaster.

It seems to me that water and oil quenched steels would have a different cooling curve, since the water has a much higher specific heat, so more heat would be removed from the blade more quickly, than if quenched in oil.
What the cooling curve would be for antifreeze/water is anyone's guess.

I see no reason to try quenching steel in antifreeze/water, and lots of reasons not to.

Walter Welch MD
 
Hey JC, I would advise going to the library to check out a book on metallurgy. One I am reading now is called "Tool Steel Simplified" and it has taught me quite a bit about steel and its properties, mechanics and heat treatment. There is extensive discussion regarding water and air quenching steel with adequate discussion on oil quenching steels.

Spencer Stewart
 
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