Hardening of en8

[Kram]

@Dr.Al you are correct, however silver steel has a high enough carbon content that the extra shock of water is not needed, oil certainly gets parts hardened. Water may be required for larger parts to get hard in the centre.

Apart from old inherited imperial stuff, mine is all from T&A - your first reference.

 

[BrokenBiker]

as a quick segwey as im interested very much in doing a bit of this this also, can you post a few details regarding your furnice / forge?
there seems to be tons of different designs / ways to get steel up to that temp and hold it relatively stable, cheers!

its a vevor 2 burner propane forge with a 47kg bottle and i use an ebay k type thremocouple for measuring temps inside the forge. when the forge is the temp you want and the metal is the same colour as the glow in the forge its the same temp.

i did a brief review/unboxing post on here about the forge a while back, maybe october/november time cant quite remember...

 

[oldbikedavey]

From my limited knowledge, doesn't nitrogen hardening make the part grow? Plasma nitriding I think was the term if I recall?

As always, there's a difference between scratching your bum and tearing the skin off in strips.
Don't go out looking for perfection, because it is only ever very rarely glimpsed .