Yes, you should be able to find it from various vendors. Here are a couple of the first links that came up:
Brand: CHERRY REDType: Surface Hardening CompoundContainer Size: 1 lb.Container Type: Jar
www.travers.com
Brand: KASENIT
www.travers.com
Apparently I was incorrect in putting the "e" on the end - when I did the search I realized it is Kasenit.
Hi, I have used Karen it and it is very good. I was taught as a teenager, in a proper machining and engine refurbishing workshop, with the regional licence for servicing and rebuilding industrial Broome -Wade compressors! The job was case hardening turned shafts for grinding to finished size - using leather wrapped around the shafts, secured with wire and cooked in a wood fire (furnace with lots of draught). That was one of my "Saturday" jobs. Cutting old shoes and boots into strips of leather and wrapping the steel 2 layers thick, bound with wire, then firing to red-heat and quenching. The parts actually ended up in the red hot charcoal before removal from the fire, so probably the charcoal had as much case-hardening effect as the leather? But a fun job for "the boy". I guess you could use the charcoal barbecue nowadays..... burned sausage and burger fat may add an extra something? After a few beers, humans make a suitable cooling fluid for the red-hot parts.. For a bit of nitriding?
Also, for a scriber, or small hand tool, we used sugar. It burned when we dipped red-hot steel into a tin of sugar, but it worked OK. Then this new thing called Kasenit became available.... but the boss bought a tin and decided it was only as useful as coke dust, or sugar. We didn't quantitively analyse the performance of relative hardening methods, but where can you get coke dust nowadays?
In medieval times, blacksmiths used donkey pee for quenching blades and tools to get a better edge. The donkey would be fed only on turnips to get "strong liquor, for a good blade". The nitrogen in ammonia is still used for nitriding, but today we use gaseous ammonia in a furnace. For the small home workshop you can nitride steel by using case-hardening technique with Nitrogen-rich fertilizer, from your Garden store. But the fumes are toxic, so do it in the open air and avoid the smoke.
Incidentally, you can make a few dummy workpieces, practice your technique, and judge by using your automatic punch as a consistent tool and measuring the size of indentations. Compare un-hardened with hardened material, and the diameter of the pop-mark will give you a rough guide to the effectiveness of your process.
Enjoy.
K
