Oops Dropped my Steel in the fire. HELP!

[Beech Nut]

Folks

Was lighting a fire using my flint and steel, when without me knowing I dropped the steel in the fire. After an hour or so I realised this and fished it out.
Problem is it now no longer works. I had heared that dropping your steel in the fire would kill it, but I have also heared that you can resurect the thing by heating it somehow.

Anyone know what I need to do to get my sparks back? Its a nice woodlore one and has always worked great, would be a shame to have to ditch it.

Thanks

jon

 

[Tony]

Ahh, that's a shame mate, I hope that someone on here has some ideas as I've got none I'm interested to know though

 

[andyn]

Jon, that wasnt very clever now was it I'm not 100% sure myself but would think that you will probably have to re-temper it, in other words heat the blade to about 800oC and then cool it rapidly (dip in cold oil?), then again to about 150oC and let it cool on its own. When the steel reaches 800oC it absorbs Carbon which makes it Iron Carbide (or something like that) then by heating it again you make sure that as much of the carbon is absorbed as possible.

I'm afraid i'm only recounting what someone on here told me about tempering a knife blade but i think the same will apply to your steel.


P.S I have the woodlore steel myself (no you can't have it) but do agree they make good sparks....well mine does anyway

Good luck with it.

 

[BorderReiver]

Jason !!!!!

 

[leon-1]

Folks

Was lighting a fire using my flint and steel, when without me knowing I dropped the steel in the fire. After an hour or so I realised this and fished it out.
Problem is it now no longer works. I had heared that dropping your steel in the fire would kill it, but I have also heared that you can resurect the thing by heating it somehow.

Anyone know what I need to do to get my sparks back? Its a nice woodlore one and has always worked great, would be a shame to have to ditch it.

Thanks

jon

I take it you mean Strike-A-Lite traditional flint and steel. From what I can remember they are not tempered as such, they are just hardened. You would have to heat it untill it reaches a temperature where it is no longer magnetic (a magnet will not hold to it) and then quench in the relevant fluid (cooking oil very slightly heated to around 30 - 40 degrees) this will harden it again.

Or as BR mentioned drop jason01 a PM and ask advice or if he can do it for you

 

[Swissnic]

It sounds like you have tempered the steel. Did you see any colour change in the steel? Blue, straw or brown colourations?

Basically, if you let hot steel cool slowly, you get large crystals froming inside the structure of the steel (you can see them if you etch the steel with acid) which make the steel soft and maluable. If you cool it quickly, the crystals are small, and this makes the steel hard and brittle.

Hardened tempered steel is where you heat to Cherry Red, quench in water, then re-heat until you see a certain colouration. The steel starts bluing, then straw through to brown, then clear. This is done to slightly reform the crystaline structure to remove the brittleness of the steel, without making it too soft. The colours represent a different level of tempering, depending on what qualities you want from the steel.

I guess your steel needs to be completely hardened, so you will need to re-heat the steel (to a nice cherry red), then quench it in water. If you use oil, you will get a blackened surface (where oil has penetrated the outer layer of steel - called Black Japaning) and is probably not what you want (but great to stop rust).

This is recalled from my school days doing Craft, Design and Technology, which was a few years back... Please correct me if I got any of this wrong.

Hope it helped.

Cheers, Nic.

 

[Goose]

The steel I made, and it was only an experiment, I am definitely not an expert!
I used mild steel bar and bent it into a U shape then heated and dropped it into carbon powder a couple of times, allowing it to cool slowly in the carbon.
The final bit is the bit that will apply to you, the carbonising will already be done. I heated the steel as hot as I could, using a blowtorch, it was then dropped in water, this is tempering as far as I know and the bit that needs redoing on your steel. I don't think the exact temperatures will be critical, and if you do get it wrong, you have lost nothing you can just, or get someone to redo it.
Hope this helps, and I am just passing on what worked for me, I am not a metalworking expert of any type!

ps Onviously when I say as hot as I could, it doesn't mean as hot as you can if you have a plasma torch knocking round! I used a gas torch!

 

[Beech Nut]

Thanks guys for all your advice. Goose, I gave your method a shot, as you said, if it doesn't work then nothing lost.

Well it did, I heated the Steel up on my coleman stove until it was a nice bright Red, then dropped it into a bucket of cold water. Dried it off and hey presto Sparks again

Cheers all

Jon

 

[Swissnic]

I used mild steel bar and bent it into a U shape then heated and dropped it into carbon powder a couple of times, allowing it to cool slowly in the carbon.

This is called Case Hardening. You are making the out layer of steel into high carbon steel.

I heated the steel as hot as I could, using a blowtorch, it was then dropped in water, this is tempering as far as I know and the bit that needs redoing on your steel.

No - this is hardening. The Tempering comes when you re-heat the metal (as per my post above).


Maybe this will help: Heat Treatment

 

[nickg]

Beech nut you have got it right. The same process is used on the frizzen in a flintlock, get it cherry red then quench it quick in a large bucket of cold water. If you can, hold it in tongs or pliers then move it around briskly in the water as the red hot metal forms an insulating layer of steam around itself slowing down the cooling process (believe it or not) and you need to cool it as quickly as possible. Thats why for a sparking steel cold water is better that oil for quenching.