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Lesson 04·Diffusion treatments

Carburizing and case hardening

Why you don't carburize tool steel, and where you'll actually run into carburized parts in a tool-and-die shop.

4 min readLesson 4 of 10

Per Wikipedia, Fractory, and Paulo Heat Treating's process descriptions, carburizing is a case-hardening process that adds carbon to the surface of low-carbon steel at high temperature, then hardens by quenching. Nitriding adds nitrogen at low temperature with no quench. Different elements, different temperatures, different substrates, different applications.