doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Color Case Hardening - 2

Anyone ever cover the water with an inert gas flood? Argon, Nitrogen? You could open the crucible into an inert atmosphere.

I have not, but I would like to try it, probably with Nitrogen...or another inflammable gas that is heavier than air.....Very good suggestion CZ......

The drop is quick....but an inert gas cloud intrigues me.....Nitrogen will not freeze easily, or you could make it 'visible'.....a real fog.......

Best,

Very interesting but I don't have the means to do it. However I DO make sure that the quence water is as close to the bottom of the metal plate as possible so minimise air. We plunge extremely quickly by yanking out the slide plate...and make sure that their is plenty of carbon/bone charcoal around the pieces to case them as they drop in.

T

Actually that would be quite easy; Use Dry Ice (Frozen Carbon Dioxide).

Carbon Dioxide is Inert and heavier than air. I Thought about it a few times, but unless you are having problems with "flash" or oxygen gettig to the part before it's quenched, don't see much benifit.

V/R

Mike

One other curiosity I have is the effect of tumbling the coloured parts into the tank. Let them fall, and roll down an incline within the quench.

Figuring out traditional hardening patterns is a great curiosity to me. Like deciphering a recipe. Unearthing closely held secrets is part of the fun. Like a membership at a club. Oscar had a knack for it.

Marlin produced a silent documentary about their factory, circa 1922. Here are a couple of captures of the CCH process.









Pete

One of the issues when trying to “decipher” period case hardening is the very few pristine examples left to review.

Take Winchesters for example; I’ve been collecting pictures of “minty” (80% or better) Winchester case hardening. I would say that I have possibly 80-90 pics, of nice guns with lots of visible, original CCH. The pics are of models 1873s, 1876s, 1890s, 1886s, etc, kind of a mish mash.

But if you look at the numbers; if I had 80-90 pictures of just the Winchester Model 1886, Winchester produced 160K of those rifles alone, that 80-90 example would be less than ½ of 1% of total production. Not statistically relevant by any stretch of the imagination.

Guess what I’m trying to say is that most folks will see just a few minty guns, then try and compare, or mimic their work to mirror those few examples.

Occasionally I will get the customer that wants “real” Winchester colors …like they saw in some book. Really irritates me. For those customers, I will e-mail pics of some originals that are so different you would swear they were done by two different companies. I also have pics of guns where one side of the frame is almost barren of colors, straw with a few hints of blue… the other side looks like Picasso puked; full of reds, greens, blues, all factory original.

I will then ask the customer which colors he wants me to replicate; usually at that point they get a clue, for those that don’t, I generally tell them that I cannot meet their expectations.

V/R

Mike

........."Look Mom, NO GLOVES".........

Those receivers appear to be model '94 Marlin's with the small loading port and minus the bolt which was factory blued..........

I like his period silk backed vest and I like his hat too.....good CCH garb don't you think.....?........First cabin 1922.........

Yes no gloves.Yikes.

Intersting pictures thanks for those...do you have the video??

T

Hi folks, getting ready to CCH the rest of the Greener parts tomorrow! Latest blog has pictures and my latest commentry...

http://www.vintageshotgun.com/?p=618

Regards,
B