I am buying a Kiln tomorrow , I know Brownells have 5 gallon buckets of charcoal + bone + wood mixes , Is there other sources to buy the ingredients to do case hardening , also crucibles ? Thanks .

I buy my bone charcoal from ebonex, you can recycle your wood charcoal. Build your own crucibles.

chad

Think twice about a kiln. What you might really want is a thermostatically controlled furnace, and an accurate one at that.

I think the Brownells "kiln" you reffered to is a furnace with a thermostat. At least mine is and that is where mine came from.

I make my own wood charcoal and just beginning to experiment with leather charcoil (repalces bone). Found out it is amazingly easily. Wanted to try making my own wood charcoal for BP (ya, I am a mental case at times). Punched some large hole into a large coffee can, fill with pine cones, set it on a stove to "cook". My shop is heated in the winter with a wood burning stove. Set the can on top and hopefully remember in a few days to empty can. Pine cones get very fragile - they are perfectly formed though. Really neat to look at. Can try other woods with minimal sap (no pine, etc.) The cones don't seem to have any. Leather rather then bone can be done the same way. Hold the can up off the stove when you first start to "cook". If not, wife unit will let you know about your odiferous efforts! Only tried the leather charcoil [B]once[/B. Seems to work the same as bone. Need to do some more to make sure. Have no idea if differant animal species make a differance or even if differant tanning chemicals will have an effect. Making charcoil out of it will drive a lot of the chemicals off, but no idea how much and what goes away.

As a small business owner (gun maker), making my own charcoil seems to be the way to go. Cheap and the pine cones seems to work as well as "store bought".

All part of the fun of experimenting!

Best of luck,
Chris

Chris K'nerr

I read somewhere that willow charcoal makes the best BP. It seems that is one reason the south had supreior BP during the civil war.

You might be interested in this thread on another site......I've linked to this before, but it has a lot of information so.......color case hardening

Chris, Pine cones ! Please explain ? do you frap them up so they are powder after drying on stove ? and when do you know they are dry enough ? I sent e-mail to Ebonex for price sheets for their products , 3:00 pm today I pick up the Kiln , I will have a thermostat installed on it ! I appreciate all your inputs
Thanks all Please keep sending any new info , This is my first attempt at case hardening ! concho

I've used this one.

It can also be set up to do case hardening using natural gas as a carbon source.

Hmmm,never tried pine cones, i bet that works great. While im not in pine country im gonna have to try that. Willow wood works great.

If you plan on heat treating critical parts, you do need a very accurate furnace. My furnace is from brownells, i bought it years ago, if i were to do it again i would spring for the digitally controlled unit.

Chad

I have 2 heat treating furnaces for small parts

Bought yesterday will need some repairs
Paragon
L&L

sooner I wrote to ebonex and nothing from them ! do you have an address and phone # possibly I have the wrong co.? do you get nice colors from their mixes ? Thanks

Concho, I get nice colors with both brownells and ebonex. I just prefer the ebonex, more uniform, and just looks better. Ebonex provides chemical composition analysis numbers with their product. You know what % carbon , calcium, and phosphates the mix is. Helps alot when you are shooting for a certain hardness, and if your trying to color certain alloy steels.

The # I have for them is 313-388-0060


Ebonex Corporation
2380 S. Wabash Street
Melvindale, MI 48122

This is the info i have, and it matches on their website www.ebonex.com

Thanks Sooner ! I made contact and Shelly gave me prices and added information ! Super nice lady ! do you use just the ebonex bonechar or do you add wood charcoal to your mix ? or what do you add to the ebonex bobe char mix ?
Thanks Concho

Concho, i always use a mix of wood and bone, never more than a 50/50 mix. Depending on the parts i want to color i will use a mix between 10% bone / 90% wood, up to the 50/50. Some steels will get a wider range of colors if you put in some leather. I had some neigbor dogs kill a calf about a year ago, i tried mixing in some ground up hoof, i got wonderful colors, but they were very dull, i suspect the calcium content of the hoof was too high, just need more experimenting. I have been making my own wood charcoal from willow wood. After the quenching process, you can screen your wood and bone, put your wood back in your oven on low heat to dry, and reuse. I have used the same wood charcoal for years, you will have to add a little fresh each time, but not much. I have not tried to reuse the bone, i was told it was not reuseable, but i don't know for sure. I am looking for pine cones, as i am in wheat country here in oklahoma, that has proved to be more difficult than i imagined.

Chad

I would like to have something like this for my actions.

I made these in for my collection some time back but never finished them while still in the work force , Retired now .

quote:

I had some neigbor dogs kill a calf about a year ago, i tried mixing in some ground up hoof, i got wonderful colors, but they were very dull, i suspect the calcium content of the hoof was too high, just need more experimenting.

I use to set up at the big Tulsa show, one year I had a table next to an older gentelman that was from Arkansas. This is all he did was color case harden and blueing, and I'm not sure I caught his name. He told me his "special mix" contained the number one product to come out of Arkansas...O.K. chicken is the number one product, but CHICKEN SHIT has to be second! His colors and the work he did was as good as any I've ever seen.

Srtrax Ok so what do I do mix dried chicken shit in dried pine cones and then mix that with the Bone charcoal ? I am lost as this is a new undertaking ! I am now laying out the steel for the crucible 1:30 PM EST 27deg snow over all the pine cones !

I didnt get a formula from him, but he was dead serious about its use. Now, he could have been feeding me full of B.S.( hey, maybe that would work also) but I dont think he was! I havent ever tried it so I duno, but it is something I'd be interested in if I needed any more irons in the fire.
It was something I'd heard long time ago and thought I'd put it out there...Good Luck!

Edited to say..Wind chill here is -13* I'm inside all day today...

I have a coup full of chickens ! That means lots of chicken shit available ! I'll be mixing some up soon !

oops,
wish I had reread my writing a bit better. Pine cones where for making BP. It was how I learned to make charcoal. Willow and other hardwoods that are not high in resin make good charcoal (wonder about walnut). I cut the wood into 1/2x1/2 or 3/4x3/4 strips. Put into can and cook. Wonder if beef bone from the super market could work? Do you have to remove marrow before making it charcoal?

The chicken manure just thrown into the crucible? That must produce some very interesting odoriferous emissions!

Chris