Quench and Temper with Euclid Heat Treating

Neutral hardening is also called “through hardening” or “quench and temper”. This a heat treat process which heats the material to its “austenitizing” or hardening temperature. It is then held at that temperature for the amount of time required to heat the parts throughout. After heating, the material is cooled via “quenching” at a rate necessary that will result in a martensitic core structure but also maintain the best possible dimensional stability. The particular chemistry of that material will determine and dictate the quench severity necessary to meet all requirements. Quench options we provide are oil quenching, warm oil quenching, polymer quenching and water quenching. Just as the name suggests, “neutral’ hardening, requires atmosphere control that will maintain the neutrality of the alloy. This means not altering the surface chemistry of the specific alloy being heat treated. This is totally opposite from surface-hardening treatments such as carburizing, carbonitriding, ferritic nitrocarburizing, and nitriding etc. In those processes, changing the surface chemistry in a variety of ways is exactly what is intended.