I need a quick course in metallurgy. I came across the term “tempering” in regard to heat treating a gear cutter machined from tool steel. I’ve never machined anything or hardened any steel myself, but I’ve always thought what you did to harden steel (after machining it to the correct shape) was …

Ah, ok, thanks, I’m beginning to catch on I think. So if you didn’t temper after quenching, when you used the tool the teeth (brittle from the quenching) might chip while you were using it to cut the gear. So you add the temper process, and that removes some of the brittleness, but it will remain …

I’ve always thought “quenching” was a rather crude process where hot iron or steel was plunged into water primarily to cool it…Tempering is a more controlled process where the temperature of the material to be tempered is more closely regulated, determined by it’s color, it’s degree of incandescence…

The “tempering” process I was reading about was done very simply. By putting the part into an oven (in this case just a home oven, the kind used to cook dinner) and heating it for 20 minutes to something like 650 deg F. Then they just allowed it to cool off overnight, by turning off the oven. …

Quenching, Tempering, Heat Treating are all techniques used to produce the desired characteristics in various metal alloys…Half magic and half science…

You might check out ‘metallurgy’ on Wikipedia. The follow links to the various terms. You’ve asked a good question that doesn’t have a short simple answer.

@GeorgeSanJose I think that would be more akin to annealing. Sometimes steel is annealed to alter the structural properties of the metal prior to being tempered in a separate process.

http://www.timken.com/en-us/Knowledge/engineers/handbook/Pages/glossary.aspx

Quenching is a good way to case harden high carbon steel. There are a lot of names to learn if you want to know “everything” about metal. I don’t know many of the techniques.

Annealing is to bring the stock…or piece to be worked to a heat capable of allowing the molicules in the metal to relax and line up in a row. Depending on the makeup of the metal this could be a dull red heat…to… as hot as a bright orange heat (not quite to the white heat stage of melting. remove fr…

What's the difference between "quenching" and "tempering"?

Maintenance/Repairs

jtsanders July 14, 2014, 3:06am 2

Quenching is when you cool a solution treated steel quickly enough that carbides do not precipitate out of solution in a stable way. Tempering is when you take that quenched steel and heat it enough to begin precipitating the carbides but not enough to put everything back into solution. Quenched steels are brittle and tempering toughens them.

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What's the difference between "quenching" and "tempering"?

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