Overheard a guy at the guild meeting say he only hardens springs in canola oil

I was at the monthly Denver blacksmith meetup last Tuesday and this old timer mentioned he switched to canola oil for all his spring steel hardening, said it gave him way less cracking than standard quench oils. I've always used Park 50 for my coil springs and had to scrap 3 out of 10 last batch from hairline fractures. Anyone here tried cooking oil for springs or is that just asking for trouble?

2 comments

2 Comments

williamd704d ago

Did a buddy of mine actually try this with some leaf springs he hammered out? He used peanut oil because that's all his wife had and he said the springs came out with way less warping than his usual Parks 50 batch. He's still swears by it even though his shop smelled like a deep fryer for a week.

jesse_burns85d ago

I used to think the old timers were just being cheap when they talked about using cooking oil for quench. I ran a batch of 5160 coil springs through the shop last month and lost half to cracks with my usual Parks 50. A buddy from the guild talked me into trying canola on my next set. He said to heat it to exactly 120 degrees and keep it stirred up. I was skeptical but I did it and got zero cracks out of 8 springs. It made me rethink everything I thought I knew about quench oils. The smoke is a pain but the results changed my mind on the whole cooking oil thing.