toyota hilux leaf spring heat treatment test water vs. rice bran oil (mainly success)

Some cold summer weather presented itself so time to light the forge and have a go at heat treating.
Quick test to see if these leaf springs would harden OK. I cut off two test pieces and beveled one edge of each then stamped them W for Water and O for oil. The forge burns coke and the blower is out of a car HVAC system powered by an old computer power supply running at 5 volts (12 volts draws too much current and the power supply shuts off)
I heated each piece until it was non magnetic (which took about 5 minutes per sample) and quenched one in tap water and one in rice bran oil, I also quenched a smaller sample of the same leaf spring in water off camera.
A few hours after quenching I put the two samples in the oven at ~200 degrees Celsius (~400 Fahrenheit) for about half an hour, then cooked dinner and the samples at 160 Celsius for half an hour, then gave them two hours at 200 degrees Celsius.
The smaller sample was not tempered.
Going by the file test (which I should have done before tempering) they didn't seem noticeably harder than before. Annealing them first would have been a good idea.
the water quenched sample appeared harder which is as expected.
Judging by the fracture of the un-beveled un-tempered sample (hit 3 times off camera) this steel is a good candidate for hardening, but will take a little bit of work to get right.
Next time I will get the steel hotter before quenching and temper properly. I will probably use water as it is almost as cheap as free. Some long handled tongs would be easier to use than needle nose pliers too.

[@michaelskalin5126]

Nice forge 👍 dam now I have to find two rims. That was cool to see the hot steel in the jars. A little risky though 🇨🇦🥓🍻

[@lapislignum]

Thanks! the forge is a brake drum, there are better ways to make a coke forge but this way is pretty quick. I figured using glass was worth the risk for visibility, may have changed my mind if somehow one shattered though!

[@lenblacksmith8559]

Gee that didn't look hot enough, but you had the magnet. and using glass, you're lucky the glass jars didn't crack as the oil can get mighty hot with hot metal dunked into it. Good little experiment.

[@lapislignum]

Colour is misleading in sunlight, probably should have heated it a bit more past non magnetic but the untempered sample shattered pretty good. I figured risking the glass exploding was worth it to see the bubbles, if it had exploded I might have regretted that idea.

[@lenblacksmith8559]

No worries mate, I've done experiments myself mainly on spring steel. Oil and harden it first and keep some heat in the struck end then let the temp colours run to end and quench, works all the time for me.

[@kakakhunda5510]

Very good bro👌🏼👌🏼👍🏼👍🏼

[@lapislignum]

Cheers!

[@160moebius2]

Nice video

[@lapislignum]

Thanks!

[@droppoint495]

I was making a knife from a harrow spring the other night had my tank of water heated up nicely i quenched the blade edge and it cracked about a half inch into the blade what did i do wrong would this be less likely to happen with oil

[@lapislignum]

Oil is generally safer than water as it gives a slower quench, sometimes mystery steel has microfractures in it already and it will crack regardless of what you quench it in. Getting the steel to the right temperature right can be tricky too.

[@Mako-kr6uc]

It's a spring steel being a STEEL either 6150 ,5160 or something else should harden

[@gurveerdhaliwal5300]

Very nice 👍

[@lapislignum]

Thanks!

[@connormarsh2535]

What is the device on the middle of the grinder? The black box with the stacked discs in it.

[@lapislignum]

It's for dressing the stone wheel that I replaced with the wire wheel on the left side of the grinder

[@nevermind6245]

Is it meant that toughness is same with water or oil temper?

[@lapislignum]

Not really, much higher chance of cracking if you get spring steel hot enough and quench in water. This isn't a very good comparison video.

[@superpedro7295]

So water made ot harder?

[@lapislignum]

I think so, but I'm pretty sure I overheated the steel so neither was right.

[@octavedits]

What coal do you use?

[@lapislignum]

Coke I got from a blacksmith workshop.

[@jaydelair7718]

wrong.apply heat from struck end so shank is annealed and flexible while the tip is hard to cut with and keep an edge.smack a pice of spring steel quenched without any hardness removed from the shank.wear goggles!!

[@lapislignum]

flame temper rather than oven temper? this was a pretty quick dirty test but I was surprised how much hardness was lost from the oven temper, will try flame tempering or just measuring oven temperature next time, i'm planning on making things much too long to fit in an oven so flame/direct heat will be the way to go. Might even try a heatgun.

[@RJ11narendragurjar]

Kon sa कैमिकल है

[@lapislignum]

Cooking oil