Subject: Rusties

From: [email-masked] (Russ Kepler)
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 15:12:46 GMT

We've all encountered them - people who can rust clean steel by
simply looking at it.  We try and try to keep them from out 1-2-3
blocks, our gages, precision ground stock but eventually they get
though and *wham*, another set of rusty fingerprints to polish off.

Anyway, related to this was a post in an urban folklore group asking
about the US National Bureau of Standards not permitting redheads (or
redheaded women) to enter their building in Washington DC because of
excessive rusting (presumably of pipes...)  This triggered a vague
memory of something like this, mentioned in a book I read relating to
metalworking.  The problem is that I've got too many books to browse
for something likely mentioned tangentially, so: anyone else have
even a vague recollection here?

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From: [email-masked] (william thomas powers)
Date: 2 Jul 1996 20:46:33 -0400

>even a vague recollection here?

Theophilus wrote, in "Divers Arts" chapter 21, (circa 1120A.D.),

"Tools are made harder by hardening them in the urine of a small
red-headed boy than by doing so in plain water"

I've tried this using the freeze concentrated remains of a
traditional indigo dyevat and it works a lot like a brine quench
*but* with a real amusing smell when the red hot iron hits the
quenching liquid!

Thomas--who would like to work with power tools but hasn't built
a waterwheel yet!