Forged in Fire: Bladesmithing 101: The Quench | History

"Fighting the Dragon"?

In our summer materials camp, we heat treat steel (bobby pins and paper clips) including quenching them in water. For the work we're doing, quenching in water works just fine. The mass of the materials is tiny. We're not looking for precise, perfectly repeatable work and products. Water's all good...

But there are a lot of other options for quenching materials. There's air quenching, noble gas quenching, salt quenching, oil quenching, quenching your thirst, quenching your curiosity, quenching in quince.

Wait, those last few aren't really anything with material science.