When you work in a business that uses a lot of little-known jargon, such as the metal treatment industry, it is easy to get so caught up in your own small world that you sometimes forget the need to explain your processes and vocabulary to your customers. Here at J.F. Heat Treating Inc., we strive to break the mold by providing easily accessible information about our work directly to our customers.
To that end, let’s take a moment to consider a basic overview of what metal stress relieving is, how it works and which materials and products could benefit from stress relieving in Gastonia, NC. We hope this proves useful and illuminating for all of our valued customers.
Understanding the need
When it comes to understanding the need for metal stress relieving, it can be useful to use human stress relief as an analogy. When you are stressed out from work or personal issues, it probably helps you to have some sort of outlet to blow off steam, such as exercising, venting to a friend or even just zoning out in front of the TV. The important thing is to not let all that emotional stress fester inside of you, because then you risk having an overblown, regrettable emotional blowup later down the line.
When undergoing heat treatment, metal products go through a great deal of physical stress. If left untreated, this physical stress could manifest itself later down the line with unwanted warping or malfunctioning. This is why your metal products need stress relieving in Gastonia, NC.
How it works
Now that you know why metal products need stress relieving, you might be curious to know how it works. Here is a handy step-by-step breakdown:
- First, the metal treatment professional needs to turn a furnace or heater to about 50 degrees (Celsius) cooler than the temperature the metal object was initially treated at. This usually means it must be between 550 and 650 degrees.
- Next, the metal object needs to be “soaked” in the heat for about one to two hours.
- Finally, the heater should be very slowly brought back to room temperature, with the object still in it. Once the object is back to room temperature, stress relieving is complete.
Though this likely seems fairly easy, stress relieving is a crucial process that needs to be done correctly every time, meaning that a highly skilled professional expert should always perform stress relieving in Gastonia, NC.
Which materials need it
If you are wondering whether a particular object will need stress relieving after metal heat treatment, ask the following two questions: “Does this object have a tight dimensional tolerance?” and “Is this material going to go through another heat treating process?” If the answer is “yes” to either or both, then the object will need to be put through stress relieving.
If you have objects that need metal heat treatment and stress relieving in Gastonia, NC, we hope you will consider hiring J.F. Heat Treating Inc. We always do a careful and precise job to ensure a great finished product.