Materials and Heat Treatment Optimization for Rural Blacksmithy

Seventy percent of Indias population resides in villages in every part of India and in almost all the rural areas. Artisans are still engaged in various trades. This can be easily seen from the various traditional metal production methodologies, adopted by various tribes all over India. In almost all the rural areas, artisans are still engaged in making of various tools required for agriculture, carpentry, building constructions etc. The practices adopted by them have been traditionally going on. The implements and tools made by artisans do not perform consistently in service. The frequent failures for these tools are due to lack of understanding the metallurgical & deformation aspect .The artisans are facing problem in selecting an appropriate material for the tool and they do not seem to be fully aware of the processing influence on tool quality. The optimized heat treatment method has been developed for the materials used by them.