Quenching

Quenching, for those who may not know, is the part of the forging process wherein the hot metal is plunged into a cool liquid. Water is what is usually associated with quenching, although historically there are references to vinegar and oil as well.

When we think of quenching, we tend to think of it in reference to a flame, when by quenching the flame (typically by snuffing the flame with an air restrictor or simply blowing on it) we it out.

But in metallurgy, quenching is not that at all.

What quenching does is that it rapidly cools a metal to a lower temperature. It creates certain properties in the metal which can only be achieved by this particular process. For example, steel is quenched to produced a hardness the metallurgy process would not in and of itself create.

But quenching comes with a price: it makes the metal more brittle, more prone to shattering. To compensate for this, the smith must also temper the metal -holding it at a certain temperature for a prolonged period of time until elements in the metal are transformed into more stable matrices. The metal is then reheated and then re-quenched, and the process repeated until the metal has reached the required combination of hardness and flexibility (For a description, go here).

Why do I write of such things on a Wednesday morning?

Because in our lives, but especially in the New Year, our dreams and goals and objectives are often subject to the vagaries of life. It can feel like they run into a wall, that they suddenly will go no further - that they have snuffed out, quenched, the fire removed from them.

We need to change our perspective on this.

A goal or dream quenched does not mean a goal or dream extinguished. What it means - if we will accept it - is that it is going through a process of hardening, of becoming more sturdy, more usable.

But it becomes more brittle, more likely to fall apart, the answer comes.

That can be true as well - which is why we need to take the second step, which is to get them back into the fire of our imagination, of our enthusiasms, to reheat them - perhaps not at the blazing furnace temperatures of inception when they were first created, but at the lower temperatures of purpose, where the brittle parts will be converted into stronger parts, the stronger parts purged of their impurities - so that when the next quenching process occurs, a harder, stronger, more flexible thing will remain.

Throughout this year, the goals and dreams and objectives we set for ourselves will be tested. They will face the quenching process of reality. The question is not if it will happen, but will we use that process to strengthen them - or allow them to be snuffed out.