How to harden metal at home? | In just 10 minutes we turn an ordinary tool ? in super strong!

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Surely, at least once in your life, a knife, screwdriver or other hand tool broke in your hands. Most likely, this is due to improper hardening during manufacture. To deal with this problem, we will look at how you can properly harden the tool at home.

Content:

Content:

Work materials

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Materials for work

In order to harden the tool, you will need:

magnet;
a glass of water;
file;
gas-burner;
sandpaper;
bar.

Step 1. Tempering the metal

The hardening process itself is to heat the metal to a critical temperature, and then quickly cool it. At the same time, its hardness and strength are significantly increased, but plasticity is reduced. Different types of metals have their own hardening temperature, which can be found in various reference tables.

Consider the principles of hardening using the example of a screwdriver with a broken tip.

Consider the principles of hardening on the example of a screwdriver

First, with the help of an emery bar and a file, we align the end of the screwdriver.

Using a gas burner, heat it up, watching how the color changes.

When a red color appears, we check the readiness of the screwdriver for hardening with a magnet. If it ceases to be attracted to the metal, then the temperature has reached the desired value (about 760 degrees Celsius).

To cool, dip the tip of the screwdriver into a glass of cold water.

To speed up the cooling process, remove and lower the metal at intervals of 3 seconds.

After cooling, the metal is covered with soot, which must be removed with sandpaper.

Step 2. Steel tempering

As a result of hardening, we achieved an increase in the hardness of steel, but reduced its ductility. To solve this problem, we will release the neck of the screwdriver.

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The tempering process consists in heating the metal to a certain temperature, which can be determined from reference tables. We will control the temperature according to the table of tint colors.

Temperature control will be carried out according to the table of tint colors

Light yellow corresponds to a temperature of about 200 degrees, light blue - 310.

We heat the screwdriver with a gas burner. The metal takes on shades from light yellow (closer to the handle) to dark blue (at the tip of the screwdriver). This is a signal that the temperature has reached the desired value for tempering (about 300 degrees Celsius).