vitti wrote:...The pliers will act as a heatsink and cool the tiny prongs quickly so only a slight bend can be done at a time. Put it back on the burner for about 10 seconds and bend again. Repeat until you have a 90 degree bend then repeat on the other prong. I can't stress enough that you need to go slow when bending...
....This wont give you a perfect temper (Read: Harden) but it will be plenty strong enough for the purpose. If you really want to temper (read: Harden) it back to rock hard you'll need to use a torch to heat it to a cherry red (you can test it with a magnet, when hot enough a magnet will have no effect on the metal) then quench it in hot water.
Last, put it in a 400 F oven for about 30 minutes and quench in cold water.
<---That is tempering
1) If you use some leather in the pliers that you're bending with, it will insulate
somewhat against the heat sink effect of the pliers and it negate tool marks. I use small strips of leather cut from my knife stropping leather, but any will do. You don't need to do it, but it does give you a bit more working time and error room
2) I'm being pedantic, but what you call tempering is actually hardening. Tempering steel is removing hardness, and therefore brittleness. The procedure is correct, it's just the terminology is wrong
3) You don't
need to quench after tempering in the oven. There's no harm in it, but it's not necessary. When you're tempering tools with a forge it matters, but in an oven you've already heated the whole tool to the same temperature, so temperature creep isn't an issue.
Brilliant tutorial, I'm gonna make some this weekend. Having more tools in the kits is never a bad thing, even if all they do is fill the empty spaces
