Lapis Lignum's video: toyota hilux leaf spring heat treatment test water vs rice bran oil mainly success

Some cold summer weather presented itself so time to light the forge and have a go at heat treating. Quick test to see if these leaf springs would harden OK. I cut off two test pieces and beveled one edge of each then stamped them W for Water and O for oil. The forge burns coke and the blower is out of a car HVAC system powered by an old computer power supply running at 5 volts (12 volts draws too much current and the power supply shuts off) I heated each piece until it was non magnetic (which took about 5 minutes per sample) and quenched one in tap water and one in rice bran oil, I also quenched a smaller sample of the same leaf spring in water off camera. A few hours after quenching I put the two samples in the oven at ~200 degrees Celsius (~400 Fahrenheit) for about half an hour, then cooked dinner and the samples at 160 Celsius for half an hour, then gave them two hours at 200 degrees Celsius. The smaller sample was not tempered. Going by the file test (which I should have done before tempering) they didn't seem noticeably harder than before. Annealing them first would have been a good idea. the water quenched sample appeared harder which is as expected. Judging by the fracture of the un-beveled un-tempered sample (hit 3 times off camera) this steel is a good candidate for hardening, but will take a little bit of work to get right. Next time I will get the steel hotter before quenching and temper properly. I will probably use water as it is almost as cheap as free. Some long handled tongs would be easier to use than needle nose pliers too.