|
|
Post by the light works on Jan 2, 2020 16:11:21 GMT
Oil makes sense to quench something. The demo I talked about actually made everyone a little doodad which the smith quenched for us. I'm more interested in using Manure. I work with horse manure a fair amount (the downside of owning a horse) and the clumpy consistency is not something that I would think of for good, even heat transfer. Also, it tends to have a large amount of undigested grass and straw in it that, to me, seams like a fire hazard if you were to put red hot metal in it. I would imagine they would grind the manure and let it ferment, which leaves it nice and wet you still get point fires when quenching steel, but the thermal mass of the quenching material tends to be inherently hard to get a runaway fire. |
|
|
|
Post by rmc on Jan 2, 2020 16:45:39 GMT
Okay, here is another take on this. Several years ago, I went to a museum town that recreated a town from the 1830's-1840's. Part of this was the blacksmith. They did a demo talking about working with iron and the process of quenching it. The person doing the demo said that the final step used was to quench hot steel in cow/horse manure. They stated that it would absorb carbon from the excrement which would harden the steel and also provide a coating that would protect against rust. They then went on to say that for the purposes of the demo, they could not use manure today due to heath codes, but they had found that used motor oil was a perfect substitute, treating the metal in the same way. SO the joke was that today, just like in the 1830's they quench metal in the waste from their mode of transportation. I have no idea how realistic that is. Is there any truth to this, or is this all bull****? Sorry, this just lead to the perfect pun. As an aside, do cows and horses still eat the same foods they did then? Would it matter? |
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Jan 2, 2020 16:51:23 GMT
Okay, here is another take on this. Several years ago, I went to a museum town that recreated a town from the 1830's-1840's. Part of this was the blacksmith. They did a demo talking about working with iron and the process of quenching it. The person doing the demo said that the final step used was to quench hot steel in cow/horse manure. They stated that it would absorb carbon from the excrement which would harden the steel and also provide a coating that would protect against rust. They then went on to say that for the purposes of the demo, they could not use manure today due to heath codes, but they had found that used motor oil was a perfect substitute, treating the metal in the same way. SO the joke was that today, just like in the 1830's they quench metal in the waste from their mode of transportation. I have no idea how realistic that is. Is there any truth to this, or is this all bull****? Sorry, this just lead to the perfect pun. As an aside, do cows and horses still eat the same foods they did then? Would it matter? someone could probably write a doctoral thesis on the differences. |
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Jun 17, 2020 14:10:41 GMT
another addition to this - there is also tempering the blade - which involves how you reheat it the last time. heating it red hot and quenching it anneals it, and then you temper it by heating various parts to different temperatures and sometimes quench it and sometimes allow it to cool more slowly.
|
|
