Letting the temporary forge and the steel cool slowly gets the good anneal. Camping is a good guise for hanging around long enough for your project to cool.
To lazy to chase arrows.
Clodhopper
The huge apartment building that I live in (82 units) has a charcoal grill in the back with a heavy cast iron grill on it. I might just give that a try ...Mwoooohooohaahahahah.
Have a Vulcan 1,750 cubic inch three stage programmable digital heat treat oven with maximum temperature of 2.237° F. Use it seldom and run parts for others more than myself. It can be forced to run six timed stages of duration past a week with exact temperatures for exactimg times with cooling periods programmed from room temperature to whatever you ned part held at. I use it for hardening surfaces of triggers have to cut through their case hardening, annealing cases, tempering parts from springs to big chunks size of a truck alternator and run a lot of knives for folks. Prefer pepole to send me their part, exact temperatures needed for how long with any cooling periods and can pick up dry ice or take my dewer and get some liquid nitrogen. Whatever heat and cool cycles you want between liquid nitrogen and 2,200° F am happy to run parts for folks. Have several knife makers when have big orders their oven can't keep up with bring me their over run and help them keep up. If want me to run it, mail with instructions on exactly how you want done, times, shielding and will even pay return shipping.
Many don't understand why I do heat treating, custom triggers and build, rebuild or repair uppers for free and pay return shipping. I enjoy it, helps me learn how to troubleshoot problems have not seen before and builds good karma which never hurts. Just drop me a PM if want me to run your threaded rod through my oven. Unsure but 12" to 16" sections may be my mazimum length can handle.
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. 2 Timothy 4:3
I would "package" the rod, toss it in as soon you get a good pile of charcoal well lit.
Turn your focus on food prep. Enjoy yourself.
After the food is all cooked, assess the situation. More charcoal and / or some forced air may be called for. After it gets hot enough, pull it out, wrap a couple of more layers of aluminum foil on the package (for thermal insulation) and take the whole package and put it in something that will not be hurt by getting hot. Put it on your porch / balcony and leave it it there for at least a couple of hours.
Still seems like a lot of expense and work to save $5-10 to get the correct material. Sell the stuff you have on eBay and you will more than likely come out ahead.
I bought quite a few feet of cold rolled 7/8x14 threaded rod really cheaply a while back. I will send you some for the cost of postage.
That offer like free AR 15 upper work or squaring, honing and making sure all engagement surfaces are 100% correct angle and 100% engaging on milspec triggers stands as well for anyone unless I am having a bout with my back or super busy with work and then just have to put a longer turn around time the work. Can't take lowers in for free as have to go to the gun shop I do gunsmithing for and they charge a very fair rate if it's personal and I donate my labor. Build 14 to 19 AR 15's per year and two or three AR 10's along with occasional FN FAL, L1a1 and fair number of 1911's but if need FAL work have someone I know that is top shelf as well as 1911's.
That seems like an even better offer.
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. 2 Timothy 4:3
Traffer, a couple of things. One is that no one mentioned to heat the steel until it is non-magnetic at its critical stage.(approximately 1400 degrees) . Big problem is that without all the good equipment that has been mentioned, the temperature holding steady at 1400 degrees is hard to maintain on all the pieces in a charcoal fire. One blacksmith way is to hold the part in heat until a magnet will not work on it, then put in a bucket half full of ashes and cover up with more ashes to the top of the bucket very quickly and leave it alone til next day. You may get a decent anneal, maybe not. Will not cost much to try. Looking at the color of steel is an acquired art, difficult at best. One way to tell 950 degrees F. in the dark, steel will begin to show red visually.
It is a GREAT topic though because knowledge is power . Back in the day a tool and die maker did their own heat treat work, it was just part of the job. That was before my time. But some of the info about heat treat is very useful if you need to say solder gun parts, or silver solder HSS to a 1018 cutter body when creating a tool.
In the latter case the critical temperature and tempering temperature of HSS is so high that we used to just silver solder it to a mild steel body, then grind it and it worked fine.
Bill
Both ends WHAT a player
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |