Heat treating tool steel is an exacting metallurgical procedure involving high temperature, a need for proper treatment to increase tool life, a tendency toward decarburization, and the ever present danger of ruining costly steel with an inapporpiate treating cycle.
With Ajax electric or gas-fired baths, you can work on a mass production basis, yet get heat treating to almost unbelievably precise specifications.

Throughout history there are numerous Ajax mechanized salt bath installations producing thousands of pounds of critical work an hour.
A typical production line for high speed steel hardening:

• Clean parts with alkaline bath or solvent degreaser
• Pre-heat to 1500°F
• High heat to 2150-2350°F
• Salt quench to 1000-1200°F
• Air cool to room temperature
• Clean in alkaline bath
• Draw in salt at 950-1100°F
• Apply final casing - nitriding - (if required) at 1000-1100°F

Faster heating by conduction
Ajax salt baths heat four times faster than radiation or convection furnaces because work is immersed in molten salt with high heat capacity.

Fast, Easy Selective heating
Molten salt has such a high heat capacity and heats so fast that only the immersed portion of the work object is heated. Dip heating allows different metallurgical properties to be obtained in different parts of the same piece.

Neglible Distortion
Work is in direct contact at all points with fast, even, uniform heating. Distortion is minimized. Often work can be machined before heat treating while still soft. Distortion is further reduced because cold parts put in a salt bath become encased in a cocoon of frozen salt, which melts away in about aminute. By this time, work is safely pre-heated.