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Just realized I've been forging my leaf springs wrong for years
I was working on a set of kitchen knives from a Ford truck spring, the usual 5160 stuff, and the edge kept chipping after the quench. I'd been heating it to a bright orange, like I do with mild steel, and quenching in warm canola oil. A guy at the Blacksmiths Guild meet in Boise last month saw me doing it and just said, 'You're cooking the carbon out.' He explained that 5160 needs a much lower heat, more of a dull cherry red, to keep the carbon in solution for the quench. I tried it on my next piece, kept it way cooler, and the difference was night and day. The blade came out tough and held an edge like a dream. I feel like an idiot for all the springs I've ruined. How do you all judge the right heat for different high-carbon steels when you're working with scrap?
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victor_hill707mo ago
That's a solid lesson learned the hard way. Honestly, a lot of us started by treating all steel the same. For scrap stuff, a magnet is your best friend. Once it stops sticking, you're in the right ballpark for high carbon, but you gotta watch the color like a hawk in your shop light. What's your shop lighting like, does it trick your eyes sometimes?
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reesewilliams7mo ago
My old garage's yellow bulb made everything look fifty degrees cooler than it was.
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richard_roberts806mo ago
My last shop had those old orange sodium vapor lights. I ruined a batch of cherry trim because it looked perfectly sanded under that glow. In daylight, it was still rough as a board. I finally broke down and got a set of those bright white LED shop lights from the hardware store. The difference was night and day, no pun intended.
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