# case hardening compound



## jlnak907

i was wondering if it possible to make your own case hardening compound as it seems to be immpossible to find any in the state i live in(ak)
thank you


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## Tony Wells

Enco I believe sells Kasenite, and will ship it to you. I found this recipe, but not sure about finding the ingredients:

Pulverize equal weights of saltpeter, prussiate of potash, and sal-ammoniac and mix together. Prepare a dipping solution by adding to each quart of cold water 1 0z. prussiate of potash and 1/2 oz. sal-ammoniac. Heat steel to red hot, roll in the powder, then plunge into the liquid.


Also, look for Hard n Tuff. I was able to get it through a welding supplier.

It's all about increasing the carbon content of the steel. I believe you could get some additional carbon by heating the steel red, then packing it in a charcoal can, or similar. Probably would take a couple of shots. Need to experiment.


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## BRIAN

I seem to rember being told that the first hardning compound was ground horn, the metal was heated then plunged into the powder to cool.
Sounds very smelly to me

BRIAN.


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## Ulma Doctor

i saw a process on youtube. Midway USA's Larry Potter does a gunsmithing video series one of the episodes is on case hardening.
he had a cruible ,for lack of a better word, he filled partially with granulated charcoal , add the part to be hardened, then fill with more charcoal and put a lid on the crucible, and put into the furnace.
it turned out beautifully,the colors were really cool .
mike)


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## Ray C

All these things do work to some extent but you need to be careful not to use it with medium or high carbon steel since it will actually extract carbon OUT of the original workpiece.  Only use this on low carbon steel.  It's only case hardening that goes a few thou deep...


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## 44-henry

Anything that contains carbon will work to a degree. I use wood and animal bone charcoal for 90% of the casehardening we do in our lab at UND. I generally am after colors as much as hardness. I am not short of Kasenite either, but rarely use the stuff. I have also used potassium cyanide (under very controlled conditions) in the past, but the danger of the stuff makes me extremely cautious about using it again in the future.


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## GaryK

jlnak907 said:


> i was wondering if it possible to make your own case hardening compound as it seems to be immpossible to find any in the state i live in(ak)
> thank you



Enco sells CHERRY RED

It's made for case hardening low carbon steel like 1018.

The Cherry Red website has a VIDEO on how to use it.

Gary


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## a_design

Ray C said:


> All these things do work to some extent but you need to be careful not to use it with medium or high carbon steel since it will actually extract carbon OUT of the original workpiece. Only use this on low carbon steel. It's only case hardening that goes a few thou deep...


Can hard n tuff be used on 4140 or 8620? We have some obsolete gears that had damaged teeth that we weld repaired and ground. We have an induction heater, but am concerned about re-heat treating the gear and making it actually worse. The original teeth are case or induction hardened. The hub appears to be case hardened only. Not sure about the internal splines. Perhaps the splines and teeth are both induction hardened??

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## Weldingrod1

Both of those can be case hardened. BUT both are also quite hardenable. You want the contrast between the hard case and the tough core. I'd look up the correct procedure and temperatures!

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