quick question about heat treating

[yendor]

i have some junk steel i got at a junk yard. 1. it has rust on it
and 2. it makes lots of nice sparks looks like 01 but maybe it could just medium carbon i do know that it feels like hight carbon that is when i but it on the grinder it is a little more hard than the stuff i do know is low carbon and the sparks from it and nice plenty. should i heat treat it following 01 steel rules. i plan on using stainless steel wrap with it to prevent build up. but have not figured out the quench yet. and just got my even heat running today. Got any idea's. about how to treat junk steel. I joke around and call it 01 butter steel

[Sweany]

shine up a piece of it, remove the scale and pits.

heat the piece and quench in water. Check it with a fgile and see if you can file it. If you can it's mild steel.

Sometimes you can figure out what it is by what it was.

What was it?

A junkyard method of working out a heat treat is to overheat the end of the bar. Quench the bar and break a small piece off the end. Examine the grain on the broken overheated piece.

Continue breaking off small pieces and examining the grain structure. WHen you get to the fine grain. Remember wwhat the color of the steel was in that area. Check the oxides on the outside of the piece so you know what that looks like.

Use the rod test to determine the tempering temperature.

[Dana Acker]

O1 can react violently if quenched in water. Since you're not sure, you might quench it in oil first and see if it hardens. If it is not too hard, then try Mike's suggestion and quench it in water. Experiment with it and see what happens.

[yendor]

would it be more easy to use my forge so i can watch the colors and get in the ball park with the forge by watching the colors. That would give me an idea of where to start in the oven. Am i thinking right this is all new to me. Well the oven is i used to forge with a torch. I would hold the torch in a vise and beat on a 4 foot long rail road rail. That was a nice set up i used oxygen and propane. It was cheaper there. But i got dumb and sold my torch. some time i will get a new one.