Heat Treating
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It's really important to make sure that the parts are fully covered with the boric acid. When the uncovered areas are heat treated, there's a lot of work needed after the fact, to clean them up.
My boric acid covered heat treating tray burning off the alcohol. It's not necessary. But if the boric acid is wet with alcohol when it's placed in the forge, it tends to shoot the green flames out the front of the forge.
This is how my tray looks with the alcohol burned off. The exposed areas were a problem in this heat treat.
My little heat treating forge made with cement board (for tiling in wet areas). Mot as insulating as fire brick or silica, but still allows me to get plenty hot.
Might open the hole slightly, to better fit the 2 torches.
I've used this jar many times for quenching small parts. But clearly this was too much for my plastic jar. I caught it before it generated a mess.
This works better than plastic. It's also filled with vegetable oil. It has a higher flash point, which doesn't flare as much as motor oil. It also smells better.
Fairly uniform heating. The cooler front is a result of pulling it out of the forge for a photo.
This shows the benefit of the boric acid coating and what happens when it's not fully covered. The scale affects the surface substantially, to the point where refinishing is needed. So isolation from oxygen is essential. Lots of work to fix this.
This is how it looks after quenching in the vegetable oil. I can already see some exposed parts :-(
As I found out, the glaze shards from the boric acid is very sharp. Think razor blade sharp. So better to use pliers than fingers.
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