Tempering steel makes it hard. However, only metal containing carbon can be subjected to such heat treatment. Ordinary nails, fittings, cheap screwdriver bits and screwdrivers cannot be hardened. You can heat them until red hot as much as you like, and then dip them in water or oil, they will still remain soft. The proposed method allows for very rapid cementation of such metals, after which they will be harder than a file.
What you will need:
- AA batteries;
- welding machine;
- metal plate.
Soft metal carburization process
To increase the hardness of any mild steel, you need to make a simple attachment to the welding machine. It is a metal plate to which you need to attach a ground cable. You will also need to disassemble the AA battery and remove the graphite electrode from it. It is rubbed into powder. This will be the same carbon that, when included in iron, makes it hard.
Pour the powder onto the plate, and then clamp the part whose hardness needs to be increased into the positive welding wire holder. After this, we touch the workpiece to the graphite.You must literally try to reduce the part that should become hard to powder. As a result, an electric arc occurs. This will cause the graphite to become hot, but the part itself will hardly deteriorate upon contact. You can even increase the hardness of a sharpened soft blade in this way. But the workpiece should not be allowed to directly touch the metal plate underneath the graphite, as it will melt.
As a result, with a couple of touches you can achieve that the metal surface in contact with the graphite powder is “carbonized.” This will make the thinnest top layer of the workpiece very hard. The inner metal will remain soft. That is, this will not cause the part to become brittle, as with hardening without tempering.
In this way, you can improve the performance of bits, screwdrivers, drills, and other tools. Everything is done literally in a minute, and does not spoil the sharpened sharp edges.
