The best way to ensure the purity of your application during the process of heat treatment is to control all variables as much as possible. This means selecting the right metal, maintaining the proper temperatures throughout the course of treatment and ensuring you use high-quality quench oil that does not contain any contaminants.
When you’re doing metallurgy in Gastonia, NC, it is extremely important you have quench oil that is the appropriate quality for your application. Quench oil that is impure or affected with contaminants can collect other residual materials that will negatively affect the quenching process in future treatments. This significantly reduces the overall quality of the application and will result in at least minor flaws to the finished product, if not worse.
For example, residual oxide scale and soot can lessen the quality of the quench oil, causing it to not properly quench a piece of metal as quickly or thoroughly as it would if no such debris was present.
Ensuring the quality of quench oil
There are a variety of steps you can take to ensure excellent clarity and quality with your quench oil. For example, you should make sure to engage in regular quench oil inspections and testing. This should be built into your standard business operations. Such a commitment can make a tremendous difference in the overall quality of your quench oil.
What exactly should such a test include? Here are a few examples:
- Visual inspections to uncover any potential signs of debris that could be removed through a simple filtering process. You can remove this visible debris without adding other contaminants into the quench oil batch.
- Regular cleanings of quench oil (twice a year or once a quarter) to ensure outstanding clarity and to lower the risk of impurities or dangerous incidents.
- Desludging of the furnace quench tank as part of all preventative maintenance tasks to ensure operational efficiency.
- Checking all service quench filters and replacing them when necessary to keep the quenching system operating at its desired level of quality. This will help prevent contamination in the future.
- Inspect quench-oil agitation systems. All agitation impellers should be turning. If they have detached or fallen into the driveshaft, you will need to make some replacements. Other agitator complications could also lead to you needing immediate service and maintenance.
Any of these quench oil maintenance tasks are relatively simple and can easily be added into your overall maintenance plan. Implementing these tasks is a low-cost investment on your part that will serve to make your quenching system more reliable all year long. You will also reduce any issues that could arise with the quenching system, maintain its quality and lessen the chance that you’ll have to get costly maintenance and repairs done at any point.
Looking for more information about how to keep your entire quench oil system operational? Contact J. F. Heat Treating Inc. today and we’ll be happy to provide you with more information about metallurgy in Gastonia, NC.