hardening the frizzen of a flintlock

[Busyhands94]

i just figured how to make a fire steel for use with flint. after some research i found out how to do it right, and now i have made two new firesteels that work perfectly! so the hardening process should be the same for a frizzen. i have heard about some folks getting frizzens that weren't tempered right, so i think i should explain the tempering process and how someone can do it at home. i used a homemade furnace burning wood charcoal, and i used water that was about 60 degrees to quench the steel.

from what i understand, for a frizzen to spark well it should be high carbon steel. it has to be nice and hard so the flint can scrape off a tiny amount of steel to heat the carbon in the steel until it's glowing hot. if the steel is too soft the particles of steel will be too big, and the heat won't be enough to make them glow. if you put the energy from the flint into a smaller piece of steel then you will have more heat and the carbon in the steel will get hot enough to light your powder. so, you are going to want the steel to be hard.

my experience today regarding making steel high carbon was kind of a trial and error process. the first steel i heated up to forge at a nice cherry red glow. i bent it to the right shape, then i put it back into the furnace and got it a little too hot. part of it melted so i had to grind it off later. but, i did get it so hot it wouldn't stick to a magnet, then i dropped it into water that was about 60 degrees witch was the recommended temperature. afterward i ground the surface i intended to strike with the flint, got a good piece of flint and checked my work. it sparked well so i consider it a success! i still had a little bit of steel left so i made another. that one was a simple rectangle with a hole in it for a leather thong so i can tie it on my possibles bag or something. for that one i just heated it up to a nice orange glow so it lost magnetism, then i dropped it into the water and it sizzled for a while underwater. this one turned out even better. i cleaned it up on the belt sander (dipped it in water frequently) and made a great little fire steel kit with it!

so for a frizzen to make sparks, it should be nice hard high carbon steel so you can get more energy on smaller pieces of metal. basically you just heat the frizzen up until it won't stick to a magnet and then stick it into cool water that is about 60 degrees. so i hope this helped somebody with frizzen sparking issues.

~Levi

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Well first the steel has to have a proper amount of carbon. Just because it is steel or even because it is a frizzen doesn't mean it was made right. Next, you have to quench to harden, but not quench it so fast it cracks or breaks, and not get it so hard the frizzen cracks when hit by the impact of the flint, or so hard it doesn't spark well (this is a possibility). You might try heating canola oil up to 130 degrees and use that when quenching a frizzen.

LD

 

[Mizar]

It all depends from the type of steel - simple carbon steels (like 1085, 1095 and etc.) do harden best in water. In the old days even goat urine was used as quenching liquid because it has higher boiling point than water thus cooling more rapidly the part. You can replace the urine with a mix of water and salt.

Busyhands94, may I suggest that you temper the hardened part - at 300F (150C) for about an hour. That will reduce the stress caused by the forming of martensite. If you don't temper the hardened part it can develop cracks by itself.

Boris

 

[4v50 Gary]

Concur with tempering the frizzen. Oven at 300F for one hour is what I've been told. Guess what goes in the oven the next time I bake?

 

[Burt Blade]

I have made knives, and a friend of mine does so professionally (and well).

If the frizzen is junk metal, or low-carbon steel, it cannot be hardened normally. Good carbon steel sparks well on a grinder. The sparks seem to burst at the end of thier trace. Low carbon will spark poorly. If good steel, you can heat, quench, and temper to make a good sparker.

The critical temperature of steel can be judged by color, but you need to do this in a dark room, is a learned art, and it varies quite a bit by steel type. The best do-it-yourself home-shop method is to use a strong magnet to test when the steel loses its magnetic properties. Heat it too hot and the steel is "burnt" and is scrap. Too cool and you cannot harden it properly. As soon as the area to be hardened goes "dead" to the magnet, put it in the quench.

Oil is a better quench than water for general hardening of steel. Motor oil works, as does olive or peanut oil. Heat to about 150 as a general rule. Ensure enough volume to prevent bumping the sides of the tank. Have a lid handy to smother it if it ignites. Avoid using hydrauloic oil, automatic transmisison fluid, or used motor oil. These work, but the burn products are nasty to humans.

As soon as the steel is quenched, it is highly stressed and can fracture. I have seen blades shatter if bumped in this state. Straight from the quench, put it in the pre-heated temper oven. Try 300 for one hour, and allow to cool in the oven. Hotter is softer, so stay around 250-300 for a frizzen. Repeating the temper cycle one or two added times ensures completing the temper process.

If you need to harden low-carbon steel, try a product called Kasenite, which will allow you to case-harden (surface only) a low carbon steel. Basically, the Kasenite replaces the quench oil in the above process. It will not be as durable as a good hunk of properly hardened and tempered 1095 steel, but case hardening allows you to re-use the existing part.

 

[72coupe]

I have a can of Herter's case hardener. Works better than anything else in the world. Says so right on the can.

 

[sltm1]

A couple of things about hardening a good carbon content steel frizzen. First, use the magnet when getting up to red, stop heating and quench AS SOON AS it's non-magnetic. For tempering clean the striking face of the steel and reheat slowly from behind till the face turns a straw color, then quench again.

 

[Busyhands94]

thanks for the info Burt! you did bring up a point, a frizzen is going to be impacted, it is rather thin. for a fire steel you want it hard like a file. a good fire steel will crack or break if you drop it, but a frizzen should probably be annealed slightly to make it tough enough to withstand numerous blows from the flint. also, with a firesteel i use a glancing blow to get spark, but with a frizzen it's a bit more stressful for the steel.

 

[Mizar]

Busyhands94, the hardened part MUST be tempered, or it can develop cracks just sitting in front of you. Done right and the tempered part will be just slightly softer.

Boris

 

[Busyhands94]

what i found to work well if you are like me and don't have a coal furnace, is first build up a good sized mound of dirt as the platform. then, dig a hole in the middle to accommodate a small barbecue or something similar. my mum picked up this nice cast iron one that is small, about 8 or so inches wide. it has a bottom that is perforated with holes. then place the BBQ into the hole so it has an air pocket under it. then, take a steel pipe and jam that sucker in there so it goes into the cavity under the BBQ through the dirt. then what i did is i took an old shop vacuum, put the hose in so it's blowing air. then, i simply duct taped it to the pipe so it will blow air under the BBQ. then fill it with charcoal from your last fire, i used hardwood charcoal from some oak i burnt. put a little alcohol on it to get some glow from the coals, turn on the air and it should heat up very fast. it worked for both forging and tempering a firesteel so it should work for tempering frizzens. i know it's a crude homemade rig but i use it a lot for tempering my patch knives, i love to make reproductions of what the mountain man carried! if i ever need a frizzen hardened then i know this will suit me just fine.

by the way, i quench in water, not oil. i tried making a firesteel and quenching it in oil but i think it might have been too hard. but when i used water i got great results. the steel's molecules expand and carbon gets into the steel when it is in the furnace. then when you do a harsh quench in water it traps the carbon in the steel. for knives i like to first do an oil quench, then i heat it up to relieve the tension on the steel and thus make my blade stronger. that should work for a frizzen but I'd use water and do a "harsh quench" instead of oil.