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Question:

how can you temper steel?

what is the chemical process that makes steel harder when it is heated and cooled rapidly?what does the heating of it do to the atoms?what does the cooling of it do to the atoms?what makes tempered steel so strong compared to untempered steel?

Answer:

You can't temper all steels. Generally the material must be a high-carbon or tool steel. Different alloys temper differently, and tempering is usually done to get a specific set of characteristics, so you must know what you are working with and use the right methods and temperature. If you do it wrong, the material may be hard but too brittle for the purpose or have other issues. It can be simple, such as heating to a dull red, carbonizing the surface (use an acetylene rich flame until it blackens the surface) and oil quenching. Do that to a piece of tool steel (like a screwdriver) and it will case (surface) harden it to the point you can't scratch it with a file. Tempering changes the way the molecular structure in the metal is linked and oriented.

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