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red hot steel heat conduction ?

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but if it's not please point me to the correct group.

Back in the fifties I recall heating the end of a 20 inch long piece of 1 inch cold rolled steel bar stock in a blacksmith forge to red hot. On several occasions, instead of hammering the piece on an anvil I would plunge it into the water because someone asked me to do something else. On these occasions I noticed that the part that I was holding would seem to get much hotter faster when plunged versus when hammering on the piece. For some reason the heat traveled to the part I was holding faster when plunged versus being forged. Is there a scientific reason for what happened or has my memory deceived me? tnx

Reply to
Henry Kolesnik
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Steam, & condensation

Reply to
David Deuchar

Reply to
Henry Kolesnik

Do you think if you put your hand close to the heated end when quenching you would not get scalded by steam? That scalding would be due to condensation of steam. Steam expands and contacts the rod at points between your hand and the red hot end. Steam transfers heat in this manner much faster than it can travel up the rod by conduction.

-jim

Reply to
jim

Reply to
Henry Kolesnik

"Steam...............contacts the rod at points

Reply to
David Deuchar

Yes, but your missing the point. You seem to comprehend how your hand might get hot if it were neaerer to where the steam is being generated, but you can't comprehend why parts of the rod that are nearer to the steam might aquire heat.

-jim

Reply to
jim

I may not have stated the situation clearly enough but I from what I've been able to glean from several groups is that my mind must have been playing tricks on me and still is 50 years later. I thought that there might be some phenomena that I wasn't aware of like atomic structure changing from FCC to BCC or something else when the hot iron hit the cold water. So I'll let it rest and go to something more realistic. tnx

Reply to
Henry Kolesnik

50 years ago? :)

No need to worry about internet-juice being used up for nothing. This beats the cross-posted political crap, ok? :)

Good point! Was there a major portion of the austenitized steel not being submerged?

Having read this on a couple NG's, I wonder if it was mostly time and hand-pressure differences- causing more heat conduction that you were noticing?

Alvin in AZ

Reply to
alvinj

Alvin I don't know and I've given up. It must have been an old mans imagination.

Reply to
Henry Kolesnik

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