×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Contact US

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

discoloration after heat treat

discoloration after heat treat

discoloration after heat treat

(OP)
I am a metal stamper producing a star washer out of 410 annealed stainless. The part was always bright after heat treating.
In trying to minimize distortion, different heat treat options were being tried. The heat treater asked if discoloration was a problem. I asked my customer, he said no.
The parts came back dull grey almost black appearance. I sent them to the cusotmer, he doesn't like the look. He says they are "corroded". I know that the cause was a vacuum issue, what I want to try and do is solve the problem with these parts.

My questions.
1: Is the black harmful in any way to the part? My heat treater says no, that the discoloration is visual and not mechanichal.
2: Is there a way to restore the brightness? somewhere else on the web I saw a solution to bluing.
"We took some Phosphoric Acid (10% by volume) and used reverse current gotten from a few flashlight batteries wired together. The part was made anodic and the cathode was a piece of Stainless wrapped in cotton shich was saturated with the Phosphoric acid solution. In seconds the blue color came off and the bright color was restored"
Is this a possibility?
3: What about plating?
Any suggestions are welcome

RE: discoloration after heat treat

You could try rotary finishing w/ an abrasive media and water. You might need to passivate after finishing.

RE: discoloration after heat treat

The heat treater is not correct. Any time stainless steel is oxidized, more chromium is pulled into the oxide than its percentage in the underlying surface. This depletes the underlying metal surface of chromium, which hurts its corrosion resistance. After you remove the oxide, you must also remove the chromium depleted surface zone by pickling with any of a number of acids and/or electrolytic methods to restore the normal composition on the surface.

Michael McGuire
http://stainlesssteelforengineers.blogspot.com/

RE: discoloration after heat treat

Listen to McG, this is serious.
If the parts were a light yellow or staw color then it wouldn't be an issue.  Dark and dull are bad.
We presume that you are concerned about corrosion resistance.  If so then pickling is your best option.  If you don't like the matt finish that results you can look into chemical brightening (these are usually phosphoric acid based).
Abrasive finishing and passivation will give you good looking parts and help the corrosion resistace some.  It won't be as good as pickling, but how good do you need it?

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Corrosion never sleeps, but it can be managed.
http://www.trenttube.com/Trent/tech_form.htm

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members! Already a Member? Login


Resources

Low-Volume Rapid Injection Molding With 3D Printed Molds
Learn methods and guidelines for using stereolithography (SLA) 3D printed molds in the injection molding process to lower costs and lead time. Discover how this hybrid manufacturing process enables on-demand mold fabrication to quickly produce small batches of thermoplastic parts. Download Now
Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM)
Examine how the principles of DfAM upend many of the long-standing rules around manufacturability - allowing engineers and designers to place a part’s function at the center of their design considerations. Download Now
Taking Control of Engineering Documents
This ebook covers tips for creating and managing workflows, security best practices and protection of intellectual property, Cloud vs. on-premise software solutions, CAD file management, compliance, and more. Download Now

Close Box

Join Eng-Tips® Today!

Join your peers on the Internet's largest technical engineering professional community.
It's easy to join and it's free.

Here's Why Members Love Eng-Tips Forums:

Register now while it's still free!

Already a member? Close this window and log in.

Join Us             Close