Case Hardening

[WindyParticipant @windy30762]

Hi all,

 

Thanks Terry have ordered Kasenit from Midway UK.

 

I see Kasenit number 1 and 2 are advertsed on some sites.

 

Seen what steels Kasenit number 1 is used for but what is number 2 used for?

 

Thanks for a great forum.

Windy

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

Peter – horses for courses. One has to be careful because I have no idea wghat the loads on clock pinions are, but given that a lot are made of brass (I’m no horologist BTW), and last a long time, I doubt the loads are high at all.

 

That being so, I would munch them out of dear old 220M07, case harden that if I had a fit of enthusiasm, and leave the problem of wear to my grandchildren.

 

Very willing to be corrected, but most sliding surfaces don’t need hardening. But, if hardening is definitely on your menu, that will harden fine well for our purposes. I have used it for the driving pins on model traction engine pumps delivering at 125 psig, and a file doesn’t even touch the case.

 

Might I suggest (very politely) that part of this tizzy was caused because the task was not specified. Also be careful – the road ot hell is paved with good intentions, and what might be good in industry for production, might not be necessary or even appropriate or feasible for us with our less expansive resources. Its necessary to keep an eye out for gold plating on occasion.

 

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Terry,

 

On order, thank you.

 

K

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Hi KWIL,

 

Glad to be of help,

 

Best regards

 

Terry

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I have read these postings with some interest, I have several times case hardened small items for gun triggers without such things as Kasenit.

What I did was to cut up some old leather shoe leather and mixed a bit of charcoal with it and placed the items in with the mix and heated it up in a metal container , good enough to resist the heat and then quenched.

The surface was file hard and to my knowledge has endured 20 years so far with out breaking or wear.

 

Clive

[WindyParticipant @windy30762]

I have just checked my back order with Midway UK for Kasenit it seems that it has changed to Cherry Red Surface Hardening Compound 1 lb.

 

Is this product as good as Kasenit?

 

Windy

[mgjParticipant @mgj]

Windy – if it contains carbon you can harden steel with it. (Pretty much)

[Glynne HughesParticipant @glynnehughes93527]

To Mike Gibbons,

 

referring to fears of potassium ferri/ / ferro cyanides.

 

Potassium cyanide is highly poisonous because it reacts with the iron in haemoglobin to form complexes which are much more stable than the complexes that blood makes with oxygen, so the effect is to immediately deprive all areas of the body of oxygen.

 

The cyanide complexes are the ferro and ferri cyanides which have a low toxicity, they can’t complex the iron in the blood any more. They do however have skin irritation properties and in acid solution they will emit hydrogen cyanide. So providing they are used appropriately they are safe to use.

 

I’ve used a 50/50 mixture of powdered charcoal and potassiun ferricyande successfully as a hardening agent

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

For clock pivots I use either ‘pivot steel’ or ‘silver steel’ (aka in the US as ‘drill rod’. These are available on ‘Flea-bay’. The problem with mild steel (and at times with silver steel) it can warp/ expand (swell) on hardening. I have recorded shafts becoming up to 0,005” (0.13mm) over size after hardening. The very devil of it is that this figure is not constant even with metal from the same bar. Mild steel, especially in thin section, can easily warp when hardened

You can use any finely ground source of pure carbon (charcoal, carbonised bone, walnut shells, used tea, mouldy lentils, leather, old rubber shoe soles and old cloth). It is best to carburise the stuff. the last lot I made I did it in an old syrup tin with a small hole punched in the lid on the stove top when SWAMBO was ‘out’. The powder can be used ‘neat’ or better with an accelerator added to it. Barium Carbonate is one of the best accelerators. It is a bit poisonous so take the usual precautions and do not eat it.

Edited By Richard Parsons on 03/05/2011 08:30:40

[WindyParticipant @windy30762]

I am not sure if this has been mentioned before.

 

Midway UK have just sent me this Email about my query about Cherry Red compound

 

Kasenit is out of business now. This is the only commercially available product that is close to the same as Kasenit, but I cannot verify that it is actually the same.”

Edited By Windy on 03/05/2011 23:26:53

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