Question: Anealing SS Vaquero

[bfaubion]

Working on my first stainless steel Ruger Vaquero. Most of the surfaces cut very nicely, but the loading gate is very hard. I can cut with the gravers ok if I sharpen ofter, but I get about one dot with my dot punch before the tip is flattened. Any suggestions on how to anneal the loading gate or a source of harder dot punches.

 

[monk]

what are your punches made of ? i'd think it somewhat cheaper and quicker to create a punch that would stand up to the work at hand. just a thought. annealing the gate would be easy. the difficulty would be a re-hardening job on the part. on gun parts, this can be some serious stuff. although a gate would be less likely to create a problem.

 

[dhall]

I think I'd try to re-harden and temper the dot punch first. Standard benchtop blacksmithing; (1) Lightly coat the punch with soap, then heat to cherry red - orange range and hold for 30 seconds, or so (soap will help reduce scale). You don't need to heat the entire punch, just about the last 1" is all you'll need to get red-orange hot.(2) Quickly quench. Hold vertical and plunge straight down in to... water, salt water, used motor oil, olive oil - you name it, someone's personal voodoo will recommend some liquid into which you should quench. For a small punch, water will probably be fine. (3) Clean up about 1" of the end of the punch. The metal should be very hard now, harder than a file. It's too brittle to use - it would probably crack and break if you hammered it now. It needs to be tempered. Simple punches are tempered to perhaps a purple color. Don't let the color run that far, since you want a harder temper. Maybe go to a dark straw color, or just a whisker beyond. Gently heat the tip with a soft flame. Dab the flame at the shaft of the punch, and smoothly run the flame to the tip and then beyond the tip. Do not linger with the flame at the tip. Pull the flame and examine the end of the punch to see if the steel has changed color. The first color you see will be a faint yellow, called light straw, then a little darker yellow - medium straw, then just before it goes to brown it will be dark straw. It will take several passes with the flame to get it to this color. Go slowly and be patient. You want to sneak up on the color. If it goes too quickly and you don't stop it in time, you'll have to start over with hardening. If you are very patient. you'll get to the color and it will stay there and go no further. If you don't want to push your luck, quench the punch when it gets to the right color. Give your punch a try and see if the harder temper works and how well it holds up. Examine the tip of the punch. If it looks like it has chipped, it's probably too hard. If it still flattens out, try a harder temper. You'll most likely be able to get a temper that will work for you. Good luck!

Best regards,
Doug

 

[Ed Westerly]

The way to anneal any steel is to heat it to red hot and let it cool slowly. The loading gate does not need to be hard at all, because it does not help to contain the pressures of firing. However, the cam surfaces at the end of the pin portion of the gate need to be hard to prevent wear from the tip of the spring that rides on the cam. That small area should be re-hardened. Re-hardening can be done by heating that area red hot and dropping the gate into used motor oil, and then re-heating the part to 500-700 degrees and dropping into oil again. Hope this helps, because I don't believe that the graver exsists which will cut a Ruger SS loading gate as it comes from the factory!

 

[bfaubion]

Thanks for all the useful suggestions. I had no problem cutting the SS Ruger Vaquero loading gate with the Lindsay Carbite graver. Just had to keep it sharp. Not sure what the dot punches are made of, but ordered 30 to play with. Will try hardning and tempering dot punches first. If that doesn't work, I'll anneal the loading gate. I have a furnace with temperature gage and will wrap it in SS foil to prevent scale and will raise temperature to 1700 F to anneal. Will then harden the pin after engraving to prevent wear.

 

[GTJC460]

That gate is glass hard. The rest of the gun is cake for an experienced engraver.

It can be cut as is using the right graver material and geometry. The problem is maintaining graver control on the compound curved surface. It can be done in the factory state, but you really need to have graver control oozing from your pores.