Vermiculite annealing - seemed to work ? too fast ?

[Angus McGunnigl]

First let me say that I have looked at the stickies and feel like I've done my homework.

Yesterday I tried the heat up to non-magnetic and shove into a bucket of vermiculite methof of annealing an old file. Black Dimond, made is USA
I used my 2 -brick forge and it for sure was non-magnetic for a few minutes.
I then shoved it into and steel bucket filled with vermiculite(vertically).
5 hours later, it was cool enough to touch.

I took it out, put it in a vise and was able to easily use a new file on it.

So I guess it worked, but did it cool off too fast ?
Also, the whole thing was now rust colored, but that was easily filed away and shiny metal underneath.
Did this work ?

I'll be doing the heat up to non-magnetic, cool to black, quench in oil methond in the next few days.
I am having fun and my kids think I'm a mad scientist !!

 

[SteelSlaver]

Glad your having fun. If it is soft enough to file you accomplished what you needed. Take your time getting it finished up for the HT. Leave the edge about a dime thick before the HT. Non-magnetic is fine for getting it in shape for hardening. I would do it twice. You really need to go above non-magnetic about 50-80 degrees when you harden it and go straight into something like Canola oil from the grocery store for quench oil. Get enough of it in a vertical container so that you can go tip straight down into it and then make slicing moves for 6 seconds or so, then pull it out to check for straight.

 

[mgysgthath]

As for how fast it cools, it seems to come in different grades of coarseness, I got medium stuff from Ebay. I put in a ~1500-1600f piece of railroad track cut off and squashed down to about 2" tall and ten minutes later I pulled it out and it was still orange. The mass has a lot to do with that.. but the vermiculite insulates incredibly well and it cools very slowly, at least in my experience.