carbon loss

[Jon Christensen]

Thought I'd respond in the new forum.
Sorry it took so long to respond, I've been at the Cody show in Wy. all weekend.
Case hardening involves placing the piece to be hardened in a closed container and surrounding it with a carbon rich material such as wood charcoal, charred leather and bone etc. It is then brought up to a red heat and held there for an extended period, from 1-5 hours depending on how deep you want the hardening to go.
One of the keys to it is the closed container, if it is open you expose the piece to oxygen and get scale. The closed container also keeps the gases generated in contact with the metal. Case hardening works very well and isn't as hard to do as you may think, but the depth of hardening is measured in the thousandth's.
Considering the extended period required to add carbon, the reducing atmosphere needed and the carbon loss from forging I don't feel the forging fuel will add enough carbon to make any noticable difference when forging. I'm sure it doesn't hurt but I think keeping the carbon loss from forging to a minimum is more important.
I hope this made sense, I'm still tired from the show and all the driving each day.

As a side note, I hope to get a Color Case Hardening tutorial on my website soon. I thought I'd have it running already but have been too busy lately.

Alex, this new forum is cool, THANKS!!!!

Jon

[Ed Caffrey]

Thanks Jon!
I hope this helps folks to realize that adding carbon to steel is not nearly as easy as taking it out!!

Cody last weekend? Seattle next weekend? You are a busy camper Jon!

[Jon Christensen]

Busy, but loving every minute of it.

Jon