Tempering

[ernest dubois]

I am hanging doors and doing it the old-time way but this requires some modification to some of the miscellaneous hardware I have garnered to get the job done. If I am to re-form, lets call it a big iron forged spike, that will get pounded into a pre-drilled, this is no hole it is more of a mortice, in a post, how will I go about treating the spike further after I have heated and shaped it on the anvil? Do I:

let it cool in the air and nothing else
quench it
quench it and anneal it after that

It's a simple project for a simple-smith.

[Michael N Taylor]

I have never done it but I was looking on a site and they heated the metal to a yellow orange color then immediately drop in in a bucket of water or oil. I would definitely try it on a scrap piece of the same material if you have some.

[ernest dubois]

The question comes down to knowing whether the iron will come off the anvil one way or the other overly brittle once it's cooled down.

[Dennis Ford]

Without knowing the type of steel, it is impossible to give a good answer. If it is low carbon steel (very common); you should not need to do any heat treating. Annealing would not hurt and would help if you are using high carbon steel. You do NOT want a hinge to be hard and brittle.

[ernest dubois]

It is an old hinge component, I want to modify it for mounting, that is to say pounding it into a post, so not much chance it is carbon steel and it's probably safe to say it's a hundred years old. So if we go on an assumption it is not carbon steel, how do I avoid a hard and brittle iron once I have heated it and hammered it to shape?

[Noah Wagener]

I will answer since no one else has even though i have never heat treated anything. It should not be hard and brittle if it does not cool fast. When annealing,I think typically they put a piece under warm ashes or sand for a slow cool.