• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades
  • Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

Frizzen hardening question

L & R
muzzle loading side side shotguns
the hawken shop
Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
LRB said:
You were told wrong. Motor oil is one of the worst/poorest quenches one could use. It is made for lubrication and not heat treat quenching. It will impart absolutely no carbon of any significance into steel and its vapors are very toxic to breathe. Worst of all, it is a slow cooling quench and unsuitable for nearly all steels. You best oil, other than a formulated commercial quench oil, is often canola oil if you are working with a high carbon steel such as used for frizzens and most springs. 01 steel seems to work better than nothing with ATF, but again, very toxic vapors are produced.
Click to expand...
I guess that's why mine didn't work. Oh well. Learn something every day. Thanks. I'm never going to try it again anyway. Not worth my trouble.
 
Many years ago a old pipeline welder taught me how to caseharden with just a acetylene torch and water,interestingly its pretty much exact way folks have done it with storebought carbon in this thread, difference is rather then buy a can of something you just use carbon from straight acetyline flame, blacken the frizzen face pretty thick with soot,heat to cherry red,anouther layer of soot,hold at cherry red a few minutes drop in water,it takes a little practice to get hardness your after but it does work very well, I practiced with nails,#9 wire,or just small pieces of scrap steel to get decent at it
 
Old Grunt said:
Many years ago a old pipeline welder taught me how to caseharden with just a acetylene torch and water,interestingly its pretty much exact way folks have done it with storebought carbon in this thread, difference is rather then buy a can of something you just use carbon from straight acetyline flame, blacken the frizzen face pretty thick with soot,heat to cherry red,anouther layer of soot,hold at cherry red a few minutes drop in water,it takes a little practice to get hardness your after but it does work very well, I practiced with nails,#9 wire,or just small pieces of scrap steel to get decent at it
Click to expand...
If it was that simple, casehardeing compounds wouldn't exist. They are formulated to provide better depth and hardening. Though neither provide any reasonable depth sufficient for a frizzen.

Jim
 
So... what is the best case hardening compound that is available?
I was looking for some Kasenit and it is unobtainable.
Thanks!
 
Old Grunt said:
Many years ago a old pipeline welder taught me how to caseharden with just a acetylene torch and water,interestingly its pretty much exact way folks have done it with storebought carbon in this thread, difference is rather then buy a can of something you just use carbon from straight acetyline flame, blacken the frizzen face pretty thick with soot,heat to cherry red,anouther layer of soot,hold at cherry red a few minutes drop in water,it takes a little practice to get hardness your after but it does work very well, I practiced with nails,#9 wire,or just small pieces of scrap steel to get decent at it
Click to expand...
Called, a carburizing flame, geezer gunsmiths have been doing it for a century or so, worked very good for me on small parts.
 
64Springer said:
You can easily get there with propane.

Read the instructions and watch your temps closely.

You don't want to overcook the steel.
Click to expand...
That color chart cannot be completely trusted. The chart shows 1600°f as orange-red. 1475°f in my heat treat oven is orange-red. 1475°f is the temp that common table salt will melt, making it easy to check for that particular heat. That said, not everyone sees color exactly the same.
 

Similar threads

P
Frizzen hardening
Replies
4
Views
341
IanH
IanH
Pebguin
Anyone Experienced with Hardening a Frizzen?
Replies
17
Views
715
The Damned Yankee
The Damned Yankee
CS
baker's rifle frizzen
Replies
7
Views
261
CS
CS
T
Strengthening frizzen spring?
2
Replies
30
Views
1K
LRB
L
F
Annealing Brass question
Replies
10
Views
565
Rob M.
Rob M.

Latest posts

Back
Top