How to make matirials stronger...

[Timmy321]

How do you make a screw driver and a nail stronger??? I don't want them to break when I'm picking I'm using the nail for the tension wrench and the screw driver for the pick? think that'll work? How do I make them stronger?

[Pheniox]

temper them. I am sure someone says how to do it on this site here, I am about to goto the galley and grab some chow or I would type out how to do it.

[Chucklz]

To temper metals, generally what is done is to heat them to cherry red, then plunge them into a water or oil bath. I would strongly recommend using a water bath.

[pyrobeav_2005]

If you scroll down to any good household materials I've outlined how to temper materials. Also I'd suggest using hacksaw baldes over a screwdriver for a pick, and I have found that tempered welding rods make excellent tension keys.

[tc36]

If you just want to temper it heat it slowly (called annealing) until it is red then cool it in water the colder the better. I would say to put ice in water and let it cool then dip the read hot metal into it. The reason for the colder water the better is that it cools the metal faster there for tempering the interal metal also.

This well make the metal harder but with hardness comes brittleness. Which leads to breaking instead of bending.

[Pick-It]

Most metals have a tendency to become brittle after they have been heat-treated. The metal can be relieved of this embrittlement by baking it in a regular oven at about 300 degrees for about 4 hours. (It depends on the metal you are using and its carbon content).

[salzi684]

Pick-It hit this one right on the head. When you heat steals to high temperatures and quench them quickly like that you are creating a phase of steal call martensite. Although martensite is very hard it is also so brittle that it is pratically worthless.

Side note on the anealing process. By heating the material to a certain temperature and holding it there for a couple of hours you are doing a few things things.

1st the heat allows the carbon in a hardened steal to diffuse throught the material and possibly into the surrounding enviroment. Im not sure what sort of processing is done on hacksaw blades, but I would imagine that they are case hardened. If this is the case, trying to temper this material would be a bad idea. When the carbon is only in the outermost layer of steel it acts sort of like a surface finish. It creates a shell that is very hard over the surface of the softer inner steel and allows the material to reamin flexible without the wear that would occur with plain un-hardened steel. If this material was heat treated the carbon would reach the inner steal, making the whole part more brittle.

If you were working with a steel that was not hardened the annealing process would make the material more flexible, but only if the material had been some how worked (think bending back in forth). The anealing process would allow the crystals to grow in size, making the material more flexible.

If someone is at all interested in this I would recomend getting a book on material science. I find the subject very interesting and at the basic levels that would be discussed in most books it isn't that hard of a subjet to teach yourself, allthough previous knowledge in chemisty, physics, and calculus definatly help.

[Dukemurmur]

I found that trying to temper weilding rods a bit tricky. What rod where u using? mine was 7018 it woulden't harrden worth beans! i even tried it white hot with ice cold water (i know that this can crack or make metal very very brittle) but it also did nothing!!! I was wondering why?