[Vwdiesel] What a LDA...Aneroids!

[James Hansen]

Mark Sez:
Hagar I still feel that annealing those EZee Outs...should be as easy as
'dunking biscuits' in my tea...a long dip, or a 'quicky' in water or oil or
sand?...I've certainly done it with cheap screwdrivers with some
improvement!
Keep the craftsmen alive!
___________________________

Metallurgy 101.

You can try, but it may not help. Here's why.
 Mark there are two things that make steel hard.  Intrinsic metallurgical
properties- what it's made out of that makes it tool steel, or non tool
steel.  This is more than just carbon content too, it comprises dibs and
dabs of differing elements such as chromium, manganese, cobalt etc.  You get
the idea.  The other property is the amount of hardness that the tool has
been softened or tempered to.  Yes SOFTENED = Tempered.  The advertising
crowd hasn't looked the word "tempered" up in the dictionary yet, so they
are still on about "triple tempered steel" and assorted stupidity that
demonstrates the ad person and the person paying the ad person had no
knowledge of steel or their product beyond wanting to sell a bunch of them.

To make an easy out etc, you use suitable material, either air, oil or water
hardening tool steel.  This refers to how this material is cooled to attain
a condition of maximium hardness.  Say you use oil hardening drill rod, then
cut your tool dimensions.  You then raise the temp of the part to a red
heat, or more properly a normalizing heat, at the point where normal steel
loses it's magnetic properties.  It is held there for a predetermined length
of time, and then quenched in the medium (as mentioned above- air oil etc)
to attain it's max hardness.  THEN, the material is reheated to temper or
soften the metal, as it is in a too hard condition at present, it is brittle
hard, and would simply break upon use as if it was made of glass. It is
brought to a lower heat this time, or the tempering heat, and requenched.
Now it is soft enough to use and still hard enough to do the job, unless
it's a small 4-40 tap made in china, which will never be ready to use in my
opinion.

Now to address your question.  Can you make an easy out softer in the hole
by heating it? Yes, if you can get it warm to a normalizing heat (red), it
will soften to it's max softness, and it may cool slowly- very slowly.  In
cast iron, heat the whole part to red, and insulate it to cool.  Will you be
able to drill it then?  Doubtful, as it is tool steel or at least should be
and is still too hard in the soft state due to the alloy itself unless you
have good drills.  Really good drills, the kind you flood coolant when using
and treat like glass as they are solid carbide, and cost you an arm and a
leg. I have had reasonable success removing easy outs that break by driving
small nails (wedges) beside the easy out to wedge the easy out over and
loosen it, being careful to be able to extract the wedge as I'm doing this.
I actually use a piece of hardened drill rod, and you could use an old drill
broken off and sharpened to a taper or a wedge.  You have to harden the
shank portion first, as they are soft from factory.  I do this after
tempering the easy out with a torch too, any little helps, and I WILL NOT
use my good drills on this unless we are talking about having to buy an
expensive casting to replace the part with the broken easy out in it.  The
drill is like eighty bucks to replace...
Oh, easy out steel is not like chocolate candy with a soft center, you
cannot get it to have a soft center and hard outside, unless you are
referring to case hardening which is a whole different ball game, think of
that as a coating almost.  Metal is homogenous, what you do to the outside
happens on the inside as well.  It may be marginally softer inside, but you
are talking about a hardness of maybe 1-2 Rc, which is nothing.

Tips on your screwdrivers from a blacksmith:

Regrind the end to the proper shape, don't worry about getting it too hot or
anything.  Heat the end to dull red viewed under good light, hold it at that
heat for ten seconds or so.  Quench the screwdriver in water, wave it around
in the water to ensure uniform cooling.  polish the end, use sandpaper or a
couple strokes with a file, you want the steel to be good and shiny.  Take
your propane torch, and gently and uniformly heat the first half inch or so
of the screwdriver until the oxidation colors begins to appear.  This is how
a blacksmith "draws the temper" in steel.   The colors that appear start at
a light straw color and end at a light blue.  The whole progression is from
straw, to dark straw, bronze, peacock, purple, blue light blue signifying
cool to hot, or from the least tempered(hard) to most tempered (soft)  Make
a screwdriver a bronze to peacock.  A cold chisel would be good at dark
straw.  When the right color appears, requench quickly, you want to have
your tin of water close by.

 Cheap screwdrivers or punches and chisels made from ground up french safes
are crap to start with, and  you can only improve them to a point.  The
metal they are made from is not good to start with.

To anneal, you are wanting to make stuff soft.  Bring the metal to a red
heat, hold it there, and cool slowly in warm ashes, warm sand or wrapping in
fibreglass insulation (best).

The above applies to most ferrous metals. Non-ferrous like brass, copper,
etc is the exact opposite, quenching from hot makes it soft. cooling slowly
makes it hard.

So now you know what the village blacksmith knew 100 years ago. :-))

-James











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