Stephen
Thanks for the plug The Hagn came out nice; I generally steer folks away from CCH when they want a nicely engraved piece done, CCH will hide a lot of detail, but the Hagn was well executed.
Ed Good brings up a good point no pun intended. As I stated before, the extreme temperature change induces a lot of stresses into the metal, its a reality, youve added carbon to the steel and quenched it in water; changing the temperature by over a thousand degrees in a fraction of a second. The steel has changed.
As quenched, the steel will have a lot of internal stress, you need to relieve them the best that you can, optimally this would mean heating to annealing tempBUT that would negate the hardness and colors. So you have to compromise.
We all know that steel changes colors when heated, the first notable color change occurs around 400 deg f. With that said, I recommend staying below that temp. Winchester would boil their parts for a period of time then tumble dry in sawdust.
I know for many that its frustrating that I wont get into details, but there are a few folks out there dong CCH now, some are doing it absolutely wrong them I like, they keep business coming my way.
CCH is also an Art and a Science. Getting the hardness is purely science, simple formula, X temp at Y time will give you Z depth of hardness. This was well known by the practitioners over 100 years ago. Lots of charts/formulas in the old books, fortunately not much on Google, which means if you want the info you have to spend the time researching.
The Art is in the colors, some folks want subdued, others want bright bold with lots of blue, and some want reds/greens. Its all achievable with just wood/bone ratio, quench temp, O2 saturation in water and water temp..simple.
Respectfully
Mike Hunter
