nine9jack9
Active Member
Currently I use a product called ATP-641 that is marketed by Brownell's as a preventative for decarburization when heat treating carbon steels. I use it on O1 and have good results. Talking to an old machinist yesterday he mentioned that they would use to rub a bar of Ivory soap all over the piece to be heat treated to achieve the same results. Tried it yesterday on a scrap and had it tested for hardness and it Rockwelled at 58, post temper, which I didn't think was bad. Anyway, has anybody heard of this? How common a practice was this or is it still? Not that I'm leaving ATP-641 anytime soon but really wanted to know how this works, wouldn't think Soap was enough of a barrier especially at 1500F. I will say that compared to a blade coated with ATP; the soap coated blade came out black as opposed to the gray I'm used to in heat treated steel. Destroyed the piece that was soap coated too to see if there was crystallization and it seemed that it was just as difficult to break as the ATP coated stuff. Anybody out there with some useful info would be most welcome. Thank you.