Stress relieving C1018-- suggestions?

Harold, I seem to recall that coating the workpiece with sodium silicate will prevent scaling. Sodium silicate or waterglass, is a liquid that could be brushed on, and what remains after HT should be water soluble.

Good Luck, Mike

I'm no expert but I've heard to rub soap on the outside of cooking utensils when cooking over an open fire for easy cleanup.

If it's small, a thin layer of borax (applied as a mush perhaps? Or have you any paste flux?) might hold it long enough. Dunno about removing later, could get pretty crunchy...

Only needs what, 1000°F or so? For an hour? Could take that off with sandpaper later...

Tim

Hi Harold,

This is probably acedemic at this point, but if the base material was cold rolled steel, this is really really common problem with that stuff. If you have the opportunity or need to make more units, you would be much happier with hot rolled steel, which will not give you nearly any of the same problems: You probably will not need to bend back to flat or stress relieve.

We used to use the hot rolled steel for punch plates and retainers for high precision stamping. Occasionally, someone would spec out CRS instead of HRS and man what a mess.

Sorry I can't really answer your real question, but using hot-rolled material is so much better as it has a much lower internal stress because it is hot worked.

Later,

SMA

That's my experience. 1000 F is plenty and scaling is minimal. Silver solder flux, borax, Keep Brite, etc.,any of those will prevent any scale if necessary, but it doesn't sound like a little will hurt in this application.

Randy

The old blacksmith method is to coat the work with soap. I toss the last bits of bars of Ivory hand soap bars into a plastic container (sour cream type) with some water. You get a gooy mess that is easily spread on the work. Initial heating should be gentle until the water evaporates. It's far from perfect but does greatly reduce the scaling.

Ted

Several years back, we got my brothers and sisters and their families together and all went camping.

We were setting up camp and I was beating my brains out trying to rub a bar of Ivory into all the nooks and crannies of my 6 qt coffee pot.

My nephew, who at the time seemed to lack all common sense, said; "Why don't you use liquid soap ?".

Here I was, 40 years old, (at the time) and my 11 year old nephew tells me something I should have thought of 30 years earlier.

It worked like a champ. Goes on in seconds and protects as well as bar soap.

Paul K. Dickman

Pack it in cast iron powder or fine cast iron chips.

John

If you are going to finish machine it why worry about scale? Ray