If you’ve ever seen a blacksmith portrayed in the movies or watched a metalworking television show, you’ve probably witnessed an iconic scene. A blacksmith hammers away at a piece of white-hot metal, then dunks it into a bucket of water to quickly cool it. The metal hisses and steams, eventually cooling to reveal a forged tool.
This is a little bit of an oversimplification, but it’s nonetheless representative of what a quench temper in Gastonia, NC is. Quenching is an important step in many heat treatments, and it’s still used today to help forge some of the strongest tools we use.
Rapid Cooling
The science behind quenching is extremely complicated. Luckily, it can be understood at a basic level that’s relatively straightforward. Essentially, it involves rapidly cooling down very hot metals as a way to imbue them with extreme strength. The rapid cooling causes a chemical reaction at a molecular level, resulting in a “temper.” Tempering leaves many metals—namely iron and steel alloys—with more ductile properties.
Again, this is a gross oversimplification. The quenching process is actually extremely calculated. Quenching metals at the wrong temperature can cause them to crack or become frail—the opposite of what you’d want!
Quench Media
Quenching doesn’t always have to be done with water. In fact, it’s frequently not. There are many different quenching options—called quench media—that rapidly scale heated metal to different temperatures, allowing it to benefit from different tempering properties. Some examples include oil, nitrogen, argon, pressurized air and liquid polymers, in addition to water.
The purpose of using different quench media is to slow down or speed up the thermodynamic cooling process. Some alloys require a very quick quench time to temper, while others temper better when the quench occurs at a slower rate. Different media enable metallurgists to achieve these results.
Controlling the Temper
The extreme chemical reaction that occurs during quenching may imbue metal with exceptional properties, but it can come with disfiguring side effects. Metal can contract, warp or twist, causing the metal to come out less than perfect.
To combat this, metallurgists can create controlled quenching environments. This involves treating quench media and precisely controlling cooling temps through a variety of methods. For example, quenched objects might be subjected to a vacuum furnace or a salt bath to better control their quench conditions. This mitigates or eliminates the side effects of quenching, without impeding the tempering reaction.
The Benefits
Objects that are properly subjected to quenching can be tempered to offer extreme durability and strength. This is paramount for things like industrial parts, tools and a wide range of commercial equipment—all of which assumes the burden of heavy use over time. A quench temper in Gastonia, NC gives these products the strength and resilience they need to remain reliable over time.
The blacksmiths you’ve seen in the movies had the right idea when it came to quenching their tools. They just didn’t have the technology we do now, to control the tempering process to such a reliable level.