[Jewelry making - Article 00950] - Re: [Orchid] Hardening mower blades

[daniel rondeau]

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>         My father has recently made up a press to press out mower
>     blades. I was just wanting to know if you had any information on
>     how we would go about hardening them Any information that you could
>     send would be most helpful. Darren McGinty 

    Darren, this is a tricky thing to do correctly.  First, let's
    clarify (a word I use too much).  You will HARDEN then TEMPER the
    blades.  Hardening is just that, and tempering is a removal of
    enough hardness to reduce brittleness and improve toughness.  Also,
    although critical temperature can be approximately guaged from the
    loss of magnetism at heat, this is not an accurate judge of the
    transition that steel undergoes when it reaches the right
    temperature to be hardened.  Also, the liquid used to quench the
    steel (cool it quickly form red hot to black) must be appropriate
    for the type of steel being used.  Oil is right for some, water for
    others, and still others must be left to cool in air in order to
    harden properly.  Tempering must be done to the right degree for the
    tool, as already stated in another post, and the time and
    temperature of tempering should be carefully considered.  The best
    thing to do, in my opinion, is to find out what kind of steel you
    are using for the blades, and follow the maufacturer's heat
    treatment instructions, or search the web based on the type of
    steel, ie: O-1, 1095, ATS-3400.  Having said all of this, you can,
    and many others have, acheive acceptable results just "eyeballing"
    all of these factors...but with something as potentially dangerous
    as a shattered mower blade to look forward to, why not do a little
    home-work?  You might find steel metallurgy as fun and fascinating
    as I do... Good luck. Danny Rondeau

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