High carbon or low carbon?

[copperheadroads]

cant you add carbon to steel ?,what we used to do it with axes,nuts,bolts anything . we called it tempering ,heat it up then dip in a bucket or used motor oil which is high i carbon making it harder .maybe im way off

[defaced]

You can case harden steel, which adds carbon to the skin of the steel to locally increase hardness. Adding carbon to the bulk of the cross section would be a pain, but I'm sure it could be done via diffusion at high temperatures/pressures. You're better off starting with the alloy you want.

Tempering is a time at temperature reaction, and if you screw up either one, you can get something totally different than what you wanted. Tempering actually makes a quenched steel, usually higher carbon with a martensite structure, slightly softer by relaxing the microstructure. This is done to increase ductility which increases toughness with only a slight lost in tensile strength.

[EtLa]

There is an Interesting tread here:
Magnetic engineering - AISI 1005 vs AISI 1008

[David King]

Etla, that was some interesting reading. Clearly there are dark forces at work that even folks with degrees and books at their disposal can't get to the bottom of.

[David King]

How does the lead content affect RoHS compliancy?

"Each of these directives purports to ban lead, but each actually permits lead as an "alloying element" in steels up to 0.35 percent, according to the exemption statements and annexes. As long as the material certification shows 0.15 to 0.35 percent for lead, the steel parts are compliant with these directives."

12L14 is .35% Pb so presumably it was specifically exempted. There is a 1214 alloy that is lead free and machines nearly as well.

[EtLa]

Etla, that was some interesting reading. Clearly there are dark forces at work that even folks with degrees and books at their disposal can't get to the bottom of.

just like Einstein once said
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."