Heat Hardening The Edges Of A Cheap 2-point Trem?

[Cherryburst]

As best I can tell, tremolos that have 2-point edges are supposed to have those edges heat hardened much like what's done with a sword, right? (To keep them from going dull, thus out of tune) Heat until red-hot, then plunge into water.

I made an earlier post in which we determined that the pivots in the Fender Amer Standard 2-point are NOT done like this. They may call it "hard steel" or whatever but it's not truly heat hardened like an OFR or Ibanez Edge trem is.

Now consider a lot of those cheap licensed Floyd or Wilkinson trems you see on Ebay. They make general claims of "hardened steel" but are they truly heat hardened 2-point edges like they should be? Same for the posts- are they heat treated to be as hard as possible?

What if one were to take one of these cheap trems, apply the flame from a small Propane torch to each edge until red hot, then plunge into water (like a sword). Same for the posts. Would that be a reasonable inexpensive way to gaurantee that those edges are properly hardened? It sounds crazy, but would that work?

[GregP]

Sounds crazy.

I'm not sure about all the science, and you're right that plunging metal can harden it; however, I believe that heating up metal in that way can also make it brittle, whether it gets plunged or not. I'd be hesitant to try it... but it's worth at least researching.

[Quarter]

There is a little more to it than just heating it up and dunking it in water.

And, as GregP pointed out, just hardening it makes it brittle, it would then need to be tempered.

Google heat treating steel for the whole process, techniques, and methods.

[Cherryburst]

Yea, I know it sounds crazy, but hey, Floyd Rose started out glueing the strings into the nut

An ongoing thing I keep reading about the cheap Pacific rim knockoffs is that while they may look great superfically, they tend to overlook certain details (IE: the "vermont guitar" ebay store that sold cheap floyds whose edges went soft, or the beautiful LP clones that had no trussrods)

I guess one could say "you get what you pay for" and just avoid the cheap stuff, but it seems like passing up a great opportunity- buy a cheap trem and make it complete by simply heating/quenching/hardening the edges with a small propane torch (which would cost next to nothing)

[ihocky2]

Can it be done with just a bucket of water or oil and a propane torch? Yes. Will you get the same results or the desired results everytime? No. The propane torch will be tough to control exactly how quickly you heat the steel and to what temperature. Just because the steel is red does not mean that it is hot enough or is not too hot. Then once you quench it, the steel is hardened, but is also very brittle. You will probably snap the knife edge off if you try to use it at this point. The steel now needs to be tempered, which means reheating it to a lesser temperature than before and doing it slowly. And then you need to control the cooling. Depending on the temper you want you either air cool it slowly or quench it again. Steels recrystalization temperture is 1800 deg. F (IIRC, if not someone please correct me) and melting point is around 2300 deg. F. But the steel will turn red hot before it recrystalises. And if you do not heat it high enough, you are not adding much strength to the steel.

Plus a minor note is that you will ruin what ever finish it has already, so you will need to get it refinished.

[ToneMonkey]

Heating and quenching steel turns it Martensitic, which is brittle. I would send MP63 a PM and ask him to join in this conversation. He know about this sort of stuff.

I'd say that if it is crap low grade steel (low carbon) then case hardening would be the way to go, but like I said ask MP63

[Cherryburst]

Thanks. Yep one problem is that a lot of these Pacific-rim made accessories are "mystery metal" Its hard to know what it is, and it probably changes a lot too.

[soapbarstrat]

2 cents worth of lube can work wonders.