how much heat to heat treat a share?

mikmaze

5 year old buck +
my plow shares I bought last year don't seem to have enough hardness? Wondering if I could heat em up and dunk em in water to make them less prone to bending the tips under when a football sized rock is hit. I don't have much in the way of heating it, thinking a bottle of map gas/ torch as that is about all I could get my hands on. steel is a bit shy of 3/8ths thick, am I wasting my time, or not?
 
You need to temper after quenching or it will break. I seriously doubt you can get it hot enough and an acetylene torch will likely get too hot or not through heat the metal. Needs to be bright red--about 1700F through whole thickness. Need to violently agitate (stir or repeatedly dunk) when quenching and need a lot of water (at least a wash tub if not a 55 gal barrel). Temper about 350F for about 1.5 Hrs. If you do not get it hot enough it will soften it.
 
Watch forging fire I wouldn't use water as it seems to make hot metal crack
 
Good thought. But as bama_jeeper said, much more to it than just heating it up and cooling it off.

-John
 
The problem is we do not know what alloy is used, so I am making an educated guess on what should work. If it's an alloy that water will crack, it will need a much different temper temperature. More like 1000F.
 
yeah, guess I was dreaming this would be an easy fix, had to hammer them straight today about 6 times. pita I tell ya.
 
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