That old horseshoe trick for drawing out heat actually works

Honestly, I always thought soaking a hot workpiece in brine was just an old wives tale until I tried it last week on a 3/8 inch chisel. I had a batch of 1095 that kept cracking on me, and a guy named Rick at the Tennessee Valley Forge meetup told me to try a 10% saltwater quench. It drew the heat out way more even than my usual oil, and I didn't lose a single piece. Anyone else use brine for specific steels or am I just behind the times?

2 comments

2 Comments

wren_smith442d ago

That brine trick is actually kind of wild how much difference the salt makes. I messed around with it a few years back on some O1 stock and noticed the steam bubble pattern was totally different from plain water. The salt changes how the vapor film forms on the steel surface. It gives you a more consistent heat transfer rate across the whole piece. Just gotta watch out for that rust factor after though, that stuff loves to eat up your tools if you don't clean them right away.

noahs822d ago

Wait, isn't 1095 more of a shallow hardening steel though? I thought brine was mainly for getting a fast, even quench on things like O1 or W2 that need that aggressive cooling to get fully hard.