ne being packed around the surfaces that are to be left soft,
while cyanide of potassium is put around those which are desired
hard. The threads of the nut in Fig. 35 are kept soft by carburizing
the nut while upon a stud. The profile gage, Fig. 36, is made of
high-carbon steel and is hardened on the inside by packing with
charred leather, but kept soft on the outside by surrounding it
with fireclay. The rivet stud shown in Fig. 37 is carburized while
of its full diameter and then turned down to the size of the rivet
end, thus cutting away the carburized surface.

After packing the work carefully in the boxes the lids are sealed
or luted with fireclay to keep out any gases from the fire. The
size of box should be proportioned to the work. The box should
not be too large especially for light work that is run on a short
heat. If it can be just large enough to allow the proper amount
of material around it, the work is apt to be more satisfactory
in every way.

Pieces of this kind are of course not quenched and hardened in
the carburizing heat, but are left in the box to cool, just as in
box annealing, being reheated and quenched as a second operation.
In fact, this is a good scheme to use for the majority of carburizing
work of small and moderate size. Material is on the market with which
one side of the steel can be treated; or copper-plating one side
of it will answer the same purpose and prevent that side becoming
carburized.

QUENCHING THE WORK

In some operations case-hardened work is quenched from the box by
dumping the whole contents into the quenching tank. It is common
practice to leave a sieve or wire basket to catch the work, allowing
the carburizing material to fall to the bottom of the tank where it
can be recovered later and used again as a part of a new mixture.
For best results, however, the steel is allowed to cool down slowly
in the box after which it is removed and hardened by heating and
quenching the same as carbon steel of the same grade. It has absorbed
sufficient carbon so that, in the outer portions at least, it is
a high-carbon steel.

THE QUENCHING TANK

The quenching tank is an important feature of apparatus in
case-hardening--possibly more so than in ordinary tempering. One
reason for this is because of the large quantities of pieces usually
dumped into the tank at a time. One cannot take time to separate
the articles themselves from the case-hardening mixture, and the
whole content o