Thread: HHT? a question again?

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

The main reason must be that in those days it was very much a hand-eye approach. You can imagine the difficulty of a man working in dim light trying to eyeball the colour of steel while it is being heat treated - different background light levels, how tired or how fresh he was, whether he had been on the razzle the night before, etc, etc, could all affect his judgement. As we progress into more modern times I suppose the accuracy improved, especially with the introduction of new tools and techniques.

I've been lucky with Sheffields from that era. I've has some that were very hard but none that were so soft they wouldn't hold an edge. This article, here, on the 1903 Springfield rifle failures during WW1 illustrates the variance of the eyeball heat treat method that Neil is referring to. Thought it might be of interest.