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21st Sep 2019, 01:22 PM #1Golden Member
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France 1785 : Hardening Pistol Parts
From The book called "Exactly" by Simon Winchester, 2018, ISBN 9780008241773, in a section discussing standardising pistol parts in France in 1785 so that spare parts were readily available and interchangable, initially done to be of benefit to French army.
page 90 ........... Blanc made all the necessary tools to help in his efforts - according to one source, hardening the metal pieces by burying them for weeks in the copious leavings of manure from the castle stables.
I've not seen that method of hardening described before, google doesn't yield may hits, wouldn't it take an awful long time for the carbon to be absorbed by the metal parts by that method ?
I've always wanted to learn the details regarding how accurate screw threads were first made but the book has failed to deliver on that subject.
BillLast edited by steamingbill; 21st Sep 2019 at 01:26 PM. Reason: added note re army
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21st Sep 2019, 06:38 PM #2
Sounds like a load of Bull S.... to me,
O come on someone was going to say it lol.
Cheers Matt.
I have know idea if this would work or not !
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23rd Sep 2019, 11:19 AM #3Golden Member
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All Bull S... aside I seriously think this would not work, back in the 18th century methods and procudures were kept secret so perhaps the manure was just made up to keep outsiders off the scent - no pun intended.
If you want to know how accurate screw threads were first made get hold of a book called Tools For The Job by L T C Rolt it is a short history of machine tools - here is a link to a copy in the internet archive https://archive.org/details/ToolsForTheJob.
I read/heard the old way to harden pistol parts was to wrap them in old leather, throw them into a fire and retrieve them in the morning when the fire had gone out, sounds like it might be feasible but I don't if this works.
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23rd Sep 2019, 11:15 PM #4Senior Member
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Case hardening
There are certainly secret blacksmith ways to (case) harden steel using leather. The item is placed in a sealed tin with some carbon based materials, eg, leather, bone, etc, then heated and held at Red heat for a while.
The steel absorbs some carbon, which makes it susceptible to harden/tempering
There are also some case hardening powders which provide a source of carbon, simply plunge the red hot item into the powder.
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