Hey George,

Not making fun of the process, just a quaint way of describing what's happening. I think most of the people I know who actually understand this stuff would probably think about it a minute and say that's about as good a way of describing it as any.

I've personally seen a bar magnetized by aligning it north-south and whacking it with a hammer. Sets the spin of the electrons parallel, or something like that. And I suspect that's what's happening when a twist drill gets magnetized when it chatters while drilling a hole in a piece of steel.

So doing it hot should have some effect. If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably accelerating the process of rearranging the grain structure that would normally require a long soak to accomplish. But it could be something entirely different. There's that body centered, and face centered cubic thing that I can never remember.

Always amazes me how people figured out how to do things throughout history, with absolutely no idea of what's actually taking place. In the case of metallurgy, they just learned from experience that if you beat on something long enough you might make something useful out of it. Seems to apply to parenting as well.