Comments on: Heat treating video

By: Chuck

Chuck — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 02:55:26 +0000

I don’t think so. I have not seen an anvil there in all my trips down there.

By: juver

juver — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 18:20:02 +0000

do they reheat treat anvils , a hear that that’s a hard job

By: Chuck

Chuck — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 12:24:00 +0000

I have add this as one of our questions to ask. Thanks for the input.

By: Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 19:32:33 +0000

I am curious of differential heat treating. By this I mean, when a part has different levels of heat treat in different points, to make it work. A BAR receiver is a good example of this, as I recall. Some parts are hard, some are soft. How is this done?

By: John D.

John D. — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 13:43:59 +0000

Chuck –

ASM Handbook Volume 1, ‘Properties & Selection, Volume X ‘Forming’ and Volume Y ‘Machining’ (various numbers as the editions increased) should interest you as well. Might have extra copies of these volumes in the ASM Handbook 9th edition series. Send me an eMail.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 21:54:04 +0000

Thank you for the info. I will order a book ASAP. I really appreciate the help.

By: John D.

John D. — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 20:44:51 +0000

The best general reference volume on heat treating is the ASM Metals Handbook, Volume 4. The current 11th edition is pricey, but you can usually find used copies for $ 25 or so on eBay and Abe’s. Any copy from the 9th edition on is perfectly satisfactory, the earlier editions are somewhat dated and miss a lot of current heat treating technology. If you have a general familiarity with metals, you won’t find the ASM Handbook difficult to absorb – it is really well edited and intended for nonmetallurgists. You can see the current edition at:

http://www.asminternational.org

Just go to the store and click on ‘Handbooks.

The problem with small batch heat treating is surface chemistry control. Unless you are pack carburizing, you have to leave a lot of stock on parts for later removal when you perform ‘open fire’ heat treating. Sheet steel hardening, such as AK receivers follows the normal processes of quench & temper heat treating, but the trick is avoiding distortion. Generally you have to fixture the sheet metal parts and manually quench them. I have it on good authority that the Soviets used press quenching systems on their sheet metal firearms receivers. This gets expensive in a hurry for short runs. In the US, press quenching is mostly used for larger precision gears.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:42:26 +0000

I will ask about small scale heat treating and ways to do it correctly.

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 15:32:44 +0000

I haven’t gotten that far into making parts but I am thinking of doing that. There are probably hundreds of videos and articles on heat treating AK receivers so I’m not asking for a whole treatise on the process, more his opinion on what is the best way to do it.

I’ve been thinking of making some tools and considered hardening them so I have interest in that also. I do work on cars and motorcycles so some applies there. Thanks

By: Chuck

Chuck — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 14:55:28 +0000

Because most of what we build is from scratch I need to harden bolts, bolt carriers, hammer, trigger,sears and barrel extensions.buy I will ask about the AK as well