on that meets our requirements a treatment called
tempering is used. This increases the toughness of the steel, _i.e._,
decrease the brittleness at the expense of a slight decrease in
hardness.

There are several theories to explain this reaction, but generally
it is only necessary to remember that in hardening we quench steel
from the austenite phase, and, due to this rapid cooling, the normal
change from austenite to the eutectoid composition does not have
time to take place, and as a consequence the steel exists in a
partially transformed, unstable and very hard condition at atmospheric
temperatures. But owing to the internal rigidity which exists in
cold metal the steel is unable to change into its more stable phase
until atoms can rearrange themselves by the application of heat.
The higher the heat, the greater the transformation into the softer
phases. As the transformation takes place, a certain amount of heat
of reaction, which under slow cooling would have been released in
the critical range, is now released and helps to cause a further
slight reaction.

If a piece of steel is heated to a certain temperature and held
there, the tempering color, instead of remaining unchanged at this
temperature, will advance in the tempering-color scale as it would
with increasing temperature. This means that the tempering colors
do not absolutely correspond to the temperatures of steels, but the
variations are so slight that we can use them in actual practice.
(See Table 23, page 158.)

TEMPERATURES TO USE.--As soon as the temperature of the steel reaches
100 deg.C. (212 deg.F.) the transformation begins, increasing in intensity
as the temperature is raised, until finally when the lower critical
range is reached, the steel has been all changed into the ordinary
constituents of unhardened steels.

If a piece of polished steel is heated in an ordinary furnace, a
thin film of oxides will form on its surface. The colors of this
film change with temperature, and so, in tempering, they are generally
used as an indication of the temperature of the steel. The steel
should have at least one polished face so that this film of oxides
may be seen.

An alternative method to the determination of temper by color is
to temper by heating in an oil or salt bath. Oil baths can be used
up to temperatures of 500 deg.F.; above this, fused-salt baths are
required. The article to be tempered is put into the bath, brought
up to and held at the