Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

Owen, that's very exciting, I had seen that post earlier and wrongfully assumed that the drawings were from post war cars.

Let the ride decide, the print says it was made from #140-S STEEL and I would agree with Bruce who thinks that this is really SAE 1040 steel. The Cyanide C-512 refers to the heat treatment process which looks to have been added as an alteration to the print at a later date.

I looked around and all I could find was 1018 in the garage so that's what I made the part from. I'm going to skip heat treating it because I don't have the equipment to do it right and I'll probably never put more than a few thousand miles on this car. Here are the results:

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A nice bit of machine work, you're a talented guy! I've tried my hand occasionally at hardening small steel parts using Kasenit, are you familiar with it? It's especially popular with the gunsmithing trade. All you need in addition to the Kasenit is a torch. You certainly may not match professional hardening but by the file test, the parts I did became surfaced-hardened to an extent. You might want to get some of it and experiment a bit on a rainy day. If you Google Kasenit you'll quite a bit of info, here's one:

http://www.gunreports.com/special_reports/accessories/Case-Hardening-Kasenit-american-gunsmith-Annealing-steel1750-1.html

I heard somewhere that you know when you have heated a part to the correct hardening temp, because at that temp it no longer is magnetic. Not sure if that is true or not.

I think you are right.
Tom

http://www.engnath.com/harden.htm

A farrier taught me that magnet trick when I was about 20. He was hammering on some shoes for a friends horse and I was questioning him on how he knew when the shoe was hot enough to start hammering. Evidently when the magnet drops off the shoe it's time to start bending it to shape. I was astounded.

I have never heard of Kasenit and my brief read of the website leads me to believe it imparts some carbon in to the surface of the steel allowing it to case harden after quenching. Sounds pretty cool and if my torches weren't out of gas I'd give it a try.

Very impressive work, That part on both of my 633's was badly worn on the lug so I simply built them up with electric welding and hand filed them to size. They have been in use for a while now with no indication of further wear.