You can only harden the pins if the steel is made to be hardened. Some is air, some water and then oil. If you take water hardening tool steel, oil will not do anything to it, except maybe crack it.
Heating just the tip to cherry red is hard to do and the heat will travel through out the part.

Sorry about posting this, I was typing this and didn't see the previous post.

Last edited by JDW; 05/01/09 06:03 PM.
David