Stuck a magnet in my slack tub and pulled out a pound of scale in a week

So I kept getting these little pits in my blades after quenching, not bad enough to scrap them but annoying enough that I was losing maybe one in five to grinding them out. A guy named Pete who runs a farrier supply place near me mentioned he keeps a big magnet in his quench tank to grab the floating scale and I figured it was nonsense but tried it anyway. Dropped a $6 cow magnet down in there on a piece of wire, and a week later it came up looking like a fuzzy gray caterpillar. I weighed it out of curiosity and it was right at a pound of crud that would have been settling on my steel or getting stirred back up every time I dunked a blade. I still wipe the tank and change water, but pulling that magnet every few days keeps the bottom way cleaner and my pit problem mostly went away. Only thing is you gotta remember to fish it out before you quench or you'll be chasing it around the tank like an idiot (ask me how I know). Anyone else do this, and does it matter if it's a cow magnet versus one of the little round ones?

1 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

1 Comment

skyler_robinson29d ago

Cow magnet is the way to go, they're strong as hell and the long shape grabs more junk than those little round ones. I zip tie mine to a length of coat hanger bent into a hook so I can yank it out fast before a quench. The round ones work but you'll be fishing for them way more often since they roll around.

4