If you are using carbon steel for gauntlets then you will want to heat treat your plates before assembling them. While I had originally included this in an article on finger assembly, the length of both articles has led me to publish this as a separate article, which will be referenced from that post. It is important to make sure that the plates are completely formed before you heat treat them, because once these are heat treated they will be very difficult (or impossible) to reshape. I once forgot to countersink my rivet holes before heat treating, and destroyed a number of titanium coated drill bits rectifying this oversight. Heat treating the finger plates has 3 main parts, each of which are illustrated below.
- Heat treat and quench
- Tempering
- Clean-up and polishing