How to use Kasenit?

[firefoot]

Greeting members
I'm about to harden a frizzon on an indian musket. The old wrapping it in leather method didn't improve it at all. Unfortunately I have lost the instructions. Does anyone have these? A search turned up nothing.

Thanks jim c.

 

[4deer]

Track of the wolf has instructions. http://www.trackofthewolf.com/pdfs/kasenit.pdf

 

[firefoot]

Thank-you Simon

I checked it out and thats exactly what I needed!
I wish I'd thought of checking there.

Jim c.

 

[Vaino]

How many satisfactory strikes are possible w/ a Kasenited frizzen? I Kasenit all the screw heads for a LR and heat and reheat w/ addtional Kasenit in between the heatings and doubt that the hardness is .002 deep which would wear away quite rapidly when struck by a flint. Just curious....Fred

 

[Stophel]

Yeah, I wonder too. I Kasenit my frizzens, but they're all 1095! They'll harden through (yeah, I know, it's a "surface hardening steel", but it hardens through enough). I think that a mild steel (mystery metal) frizzen might need to "soak" for some time...

I wonder if facing the frizzen might be a viable option... :hmm:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Phil Quaglino showed my brother, Peter, a slightly different way to use Kasenite. He holds the frizzen face up in the side of his bench vise jaws, which grab the cam. A 5 gal. plastic bucket of water is positioned under the frizzen.

He then heats the frizzen up by holding an Acetylene torch to the back side of the frizzen( underneath side here) and sprinkles the Kasenite onto the face of the frizzen when it turns red/orange to orange/white. The Kasenite bubbles when it " cooks on the face, and he continues to add kasenite until it won't take any more. This can take up to half an hour, and is the best reason to do this with a friend who can spell you holding the torch, or pouring the Kasenite. The long heat, and the additional Kasenite hardens the frizzen much deeper, perhaps half the thickness of the frizzen, or more, according to Phil, as there is that much opportunity for carbon from the Kasenite to penetrate the steel while it is heated that much, that long.

He rarely has had to Re-harden a frizzen after doing it this way once.

Oh, when the face won't take any more Kasenite, he turns off the torch, and quickly opens the bench vise. the frizzen falls a short distance into the bucket of water, and at that high heat, the scale usually pops off, leaving the frizzen to cool at the bottom of the bucket. You can usually safely pick the frizzen up out of the water after about 10 minutes.

 

[Vaino]

Half an hour of Kaseniting will not yield more than .005 depth, if that. During my tool and diemaker apprenticeship all my personal tools that I made were sent out for carburizing and to achieve .030 depth the "soaking" time req'd was 24 hrs.....Fred

 

[paulvallandigham]

Thank you for that information, Fred. I will pass it on to my brother. :thumbsup:

 

[Stophel]

I think 30 minutes of soaking might get it fairly deep...I just know I don't want to hold the torch that long. :grin:

 

[paulvallandigham]

That's why Phil has Peter hold the torch! :grin: :wink:

 

[Tourblanche]

" ........I'm about to harden a frizzon on an indian musket........"

This is the part that interests me .

I have " defarbed " a few indian made guns for friends,
and all of them sparked very well . Folk lore says that
they are hardened with some kind of old fashion process
that includes arsenic and is not done anymore in North America
or Europe.

Last week I had a musket that did not sparked at all .
First time I see that . I wondered if it happened to other people recently . Thinking of it , if they are sold as decorators
it would be difficult to complain about the frizzen heat treatment.

 

[Tourblanche]

.... by the way , the Casenite coating does have to be
re-done once in a while .
The gunsmith at the local museum does one in less
than 10 minute .

 

[R.M.]

If he's re-doing it it in just 10 minutes, I'd bet it has to be more than just once in a while.
It takes time for carbon to be soaked in. Like flehto has said, professional casehardening is soaked for many hours, just to get .030 deep.

 

[Philip Lebow]

Colleagues,

When I was a tool maker, we hardened in a mixture of Sodium Nitrate, Sodium Carbonate, and carbon powder.
It may be the same as kasenit. We would pack the steel in
cast iron retorts and put them in the furnace for one shift.
(about 12 hours) we got about a .020 case on things.

I would put the frizzen in a iron pipe cap full of kasenit and
heat the whole thing red for a few hours. I wouldn't go hotter
than red as that is the critical temperature for most common
low carbon steels. At higher temps, you will lose carbon from
the structure of the steel due to carbon migration,
and oxidation, defeating the entire process of adding
carbon to the surface.

Keeping oxygen off the metal while heating, helps with
carbon absorption at temperature, hence burying the part
in the compound.

Reboundspring

Just 2 cents from an old flatulence machinist.

 

[Stophel]

Is that not called the "Carbo-Nitride" method of case hardening? As I understand it, Davis uses that method for their parts, including tumblers and sears, which are rock hard...the way they should be! :thumbsup:

 

[widget350]

...When I was a tool maker, we hardened in a mixture of Sodium Nitrate, Sodium Carbonate, and carbon powder.
It may be the same as kasenit...

Kasenit MSDS (1/07/03) shows it contains 46% Sodium Ferrocyanide - Yellow Prussiate of Soda (Na4Fe(Cn)6), which surprises me, since I've often heard of how they no longer use cyanide based compounds. It doesn't say the rest of the makeup (I'm assuming inert substance - possibly a carbon compound), so I don't know how close to it is to your carbo-nitride method, though it is my understanding that the two methods are distinct:

Cyaniding
Cyaniding is a case hardening process that is fast and efficient; it is mainly used on low carbon steels. The part is heated to 1600-1750 °F in a bath of sodium cyanide and then is quenched and rinsed, in water or oil, to remove any residual cyanide.

This process produces a thin, hard shell (between 0.010 and 0.030 inches) that is harder than the one produced by carburizing, and can be completed in 20 to 30 minutes compared to several hours so the parts have less opportunity to become distorted. It is typically used on small parts such as bolts, nuts, screws and small gears. The major drawback of cyaniding is that cyanide salts are poisonous.

Carbonitriding
Main article: Carbonitriding
Carbonitriding is similar to cyaniding except a gaseous atmosphere of ammonia and hydrocarbons is used instead of sodium cyanide. If the part is to be quenched then the part is heated to 775”“885 °C (1,427”“1,625 °F); if not then the part is heated to 649”“788 °C (1,200”“1,450 °F). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_hardening[/quote]

Thanks to all the people who have described the detail of their use of this stuff. I haven't used it yet, though I need to.

 

[J.D.]

The material I have seen suggests that carbon is absorbed to a depth of .010" per hour, at temp, of 1650 degrees F.

If that is, indeed the case, Kasnit applied to a frizzen for 15 minutes will yield about .0025" deep case, at the maximum, under ideal conditions.

That is the reason I have learned to pack harden. While pack hardening takes several hours, the results are worth it in depth of hardening and longevity of the frizzen.

God bless

 

[Tourblanche]

So , how do you explain that Casenite actually works ?

 

[J.D.]

IT works like any other case hardening process. It just doesn't offer a very deep case hardening, that's all.