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Joined: Aug 2005
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 223 |
Gentlemen, my curiosity is getting the better of me now with all this talk of case hardening and re casing...
How thick is case hardening, are we talking thousanths of an inch or 1/8"s of an inch ? or even more - does the hardening go right through an action?
Also is it possible to engrave a case hardened action without annealing it first? I realise that it may be possible if you are prepared to sacrifice your tools, but are there any other detrimental considerations??
Jonty
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Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 3,855 Likes: 119
Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 3,855 Likes: 119 |
Jonty, most of the case-hardening is only a few thousands of inch deep. The engraving is done before the case-hardening or else it will have to be annealed and then re-cased.
David
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Joined: Jan 2002
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 5,954 Likes: 14 |
The thickness of the "case" depends on the time and the carbon availability while at high temperature. Typically the low carbon steel piece to be cased is packed or submerged in something with excess carbon. Typical case thickness is a few thousandths. After soaking up extra carbon the case/skin becomes a high carbon steel alloy and the piece is quenched in "contaminated" water. Colors form from the oxides and some extra mineral "stuff" from the packing material and the water. Colors can be formed without hardening and a piece can be hardened without forming colors. Certain modern alloys can be hardened all the way through.
I believe engravers will tell you that cutting cased steel is not a fun thing to do; possible, but not conducive to good work and lower cost. Some modern alloys are also tough to cut , even before hardening.
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 1,698 |
Rocketman is correct 99.9%. He isn't exactly correct when it comes to engraving a cased frame. I don't know of an engraver that would even consider cuting a cased frame without annealing it first.
Re-cased frames aren't prone to cracking or breaking apart. The frame must be well annealed prior to re-casing to remove carbon as more carbon is to be addded during the re-casing. I have been engraving and re-casing Colt SAA, Win. lever guns and old doubles for 48 years. By following the mentioned steps, I have never had one come apart. FWIW
Ken Hurst
910-221-5288
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Sidelock
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Sidelock
Joined: Nov 2005
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Jonty,
I am hardly an expert.
I seem to remember a thread about this with Dr Oscar Gaddy. This was shortly after he did an electron microscope scan of one of his jobs. The carbon bonding goes relatively deep. The case color is another story. It is relatively thin. At least that is my memory. Orginally the process had nothing to do with cosmetics. It was meant to harden relatively soft metal by building up a skin of tougher (carbon rich) steel.
I do not believe you would want to have the hardening go all the way through the frame. It would make it too brittle.
Pete
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