f the box is droped into the bath in short order,
as exposure to air of the heated work is fatal to results. Unless
it is split up, it is likely to go to the bottom as a solid mass,
in which case very few of the pieces are properly hardened.

[Illustration: FIG. 38.--Combination cooling tank for case-hardening.]

A combination cooling tank is shown in Fig. 38. Water inlet and
outlet pipes are shown and also a drain plug that enables the tank
to be emptied when it is desired to clean out the spent carburizing
material from the bottom. A wire-bottomed tray, framed with angle
iron, is arranged to slide into this tank from the top and rests
upon angle irons screwed to the tank sides. Its function is to
catch the pieces and prevent them from settling to the tank bottom,
and it also makes it easy to remove a batch of work. A bottomless
box of sheet steel is shown at _C_. This fits into the wire-bottomed
tray and has a number of rods or wires running across it, their
purpose being to break up the mass of material as it comes from
the carbonizing box.

Below the wire-bottomed tray is a perforated cross-pipe that is
connected with a compressed-air line. This is used when case-hardening
for colors. The shop that has no air compressor may rig up a
satisfactory equivalent in the shape of a low-pressure hand-operated
air pump and a receiver tank, for it is not necessary to use
high-pressure air for this purpose. When colors are desired on
case-hardened work, the treatment in quenching is exactly the same
as that previously described except that air is pumped through
this pipe and keeps the water agitated. The addition of a slight
amount of powdered cyanide of potassium to the packing material
used for carburizing will produce stronger colors, and where this is
the sole object, it is best to maintain the box at a dull-red heat.

[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Why heat treatment of case-hardened work
is necessary.]

The old way of case-hardening was to dump the contents of the box
at the end of the carburizing heat. Later study in the structure
of steel thus treated has caused a change in this procedure, the
use of automobiles and alloy steels probably hastening this result.
The diagrams reproduced in Fig. 39 show why the heat treatment of
case-hardened work is necessary. Starting at _A_ with a close-grained
and tough stock, such as ordinary machinery steel containing from 15
to 20 points of carbon, if such work is quenched on a carbo