Questions You Should Know about hardening machine

I have been fascinated by the topic of metal hardening. In fact, have been reading a few books and watching videos on the topic. Curiously, this questions is not really answered in any of this media.

Say I have a gazillion end mills and other cutters which are in essence trash. They are of course hardened, so there is not much I can do with them. But what if I anneal them and then cut them to a new kind of cutter (say an insert of some kind) and then go through the hardening by quenching and tempering processes?

I understand I may not know the actual metal grade, which pretty much makes it impossible to get the real quenching temperature right. I may be able to do some case hardening, if at all, but even if this "cutter" is not perfect to commercial standards, it could be good enough for my hobby stuff, right?

So I wonder: I have never read of people taking their old broken tools and salvaging this tool steel. Where are the pitfalls on this idea? Why do you think it would or wouldn't work? Interested in your input!

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I was going to start the same as Marty's answer - HUGE question, especially if you include aluminium.

Not all aluminium can be hardened, unlike steel, where there is usually something you can do (except maybe freecutting grades with lead content, there are probably others I don't know or have forgotten)

Incidentally you can case harden mild steel with low tech provided you've got a big enough rosebud tip for propane or similar: use 'Kasenit' powder and follow the instructions on the tin. You need to do LOTS of reapplications and reheat if you want any depth of hardness

If 'through-' hardening as opposed to 'case-' (which is just a thin layer of harder, carbon-bearing steel):
For small items of tooling, using the likes of drill rod, D2 or whatever, you can use hand soap (preferably plain, soft 'bloke' soap, not 'toilet' soap designed for neurotics about bacteria and smell) smeared thickly over the part you're hardening to stop scale forming, so you don't need expensive tool wrap, nor do you need to polish off the scale (so you can see the colours) before tempering.

I'm inclined to offer slightly different advice on the 'soak' temperature - I think lots of newcomers under- rather than over-heat. Unless you're in a really low ambient light situation, I think the correct temperature will look pretty bright. Two ways of judging: one is to have a strong magnet on the end of a steel rod: at the transformation temperature the steel will no longer be magnetic due to the structure changing to austenite, and you want to go about 50 deg F above this.
The other way, at least for the likes of , and , is to watch the surface closely once it starts glowing, and raise the heat until you see shimmering 'pools' in the scale - it can look uncomfortably like melting, but be assured that steel does not melt when it's merely red ! No need to go any hotter than the colour at which you first see these pools.
You need to 'soak' at this temperature for a varying length of time depending on the section thickness - one rule of thumb is 5 min per 1/8 in, where what you're measuring is the shortest route from the surface to a midplane.

Re aluminium. The term 'hardened' does not have the same connotations as for steel: you're still going to be able to hacksaw and file even the 'hardest' item. Hard anodising can provide a very thin, quite hard skin, though, and new processes like Alodine EC2 (used for cookware) and Nikasil (used for automotive block bores) are worth knowing about, especially if you have reasonably deep pockets.

If you restrict the question to , and series aluminium alloys (which are generally of the most interest to engineers), the question is a bit more straightforward but still way too much to cover to any satisfactory degree in a post.

They are all different; the are not heat treatable but can be strain hardened (by stretching or rolling); and are heat treatable.

Some of the latter are really quite strong and used for 'soft tooling', say to prove a concept, because they machine so much quicker than steel. They are prone to corrode very quickly in marine or other chloride environments, though...

Some cast alloys, like LM6 and LM25, can be hardened. What the local boy racers call 'mags' (or mag wheels) used to be made from similar grades, heat treated, and for all I know still may be. Reject wheels from a tyre and wheel shop can be a good source of material to play with, provided you have some way of cutting up something that size.

The harder aluminium is, the easier it generally is to machine to a high finish; the softer grades tend to smear a 'built-up edge' on top of the tooling.

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