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I quit dunking hot steel in the slack tub, now I just let it air cool and my tongs stopped warping
For my first two years at the forge in my garage I dunked every piece straight into the slack tub the second it came off the anvil, and I went through three pairs of tongs because the jaws kept twisting. Last spring a guy named Dale who runs a shop out in Abilene showed me he just sets hot work on a firebrick to cool on its own, and my tongs have held up fine since. Does anyone else skip the quench on plain mild steel, or am I just getting lucky?
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michaelchen13d ago
Man, that makes total sense, because dunking sucks all the heat out of the jaws way faster than the rest of the piece and that uneven shrink is what twists them. Let it air cool and the whole thing comes down at the same rate, so you could probably push it further and skip the quench on stuff you plan to grind or finish anyway.
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