There is no excuse for a company to send you a frizzen that isn't hardened. But, before you have a coronary, why not harden it yourself? Find an auto or machine shop that has an acetylene torch, take the frizzen to them, with a magnate, and have them heat it up. Hold the magnet with pliers, or vise grips, while someone else heats the frizzen up with the torch. When a magnate will not attract the frizzen, it is ready to quench. Quench in oil, and not water. Yes, it can flame up on you so have a metal cover to close of air to the oil if it should flare up. A garbage can lid works, even if the oil is in a smaller container. Then take your frizzen home, wire brush off the oxide on the surface, and put the frizzen on a cookie sheet in your oven at 450 degrees for 2 hours. Then let it cool down over nite in the oven by simply turning the oven off. Try the frizzen the next day. It should spark. Then you can clean it off, brown it, or blue it, or leave it in the white. I like to heat blue mine, but I have plum browned a frizzen or two in my day. To heat blue, just use an acetylene torch to heat the frizzen up until it turns blue. Then remove the heat and let it cool down again. Oil it, and you are done. If you spray the frizzen with oil while it is red hot, you get a black oxide that some like. You get a lighter grey/black if the metal is just over 400 degrees and you spray it with oil.