what is your opinion ? does boiling traps on the bottom of a steel barrel weaken springs ive heard differrent opinions

I doubt your water will reach the eutectic (melting point)temperature of 2750 degrees farenheit.

You should be ok.

This is not an opinion but a fact.There is no way that the temperature of boiling water is going to affect the temper in spring steel.Coil springs or leaf springs,doesn't matter.
There is a remote possibility that you may have direct contact between the spring,container bottom and the flame that allows the spring to reach the temperature necessary to affect the spring temper.If you are concerned about this put a false bottom in our container.
Myself I would find it more trouble than what it is worth

thanks for answering my question this is the best trapping forum ive been on

I hadn't thought about the springs touching the bottom of the barrel while I was boiling traps but you are right it could happen. I'm going to build a basket with the bottom bring screen this way I can also use it to left my traps out. Thanks for the info Ric.

Myself I would find it more trouble than what it is worth.

Hal

Even touching the bottom of the barrel the trap can not get much hotter than 212 degrees unless you boil all of the water off. Also as an FYI steel starts to become elastic around 500 degrees F, I wouldn't heat spring steel above 300.
Dan

I just use some bricks, the kind with the holes in them, and place them on the bottom. Traps have no direct contact with bottom of barrel.

Heat, even at 212 degrees, will affect the temper in steel. It may be a small amount, but it does have an effect. After many years of trapping and treating traps, I do not feel that it is enough to worry about.

Something that I believe affects the temper even more is age. Over time the steel just gets weaker, more so with coil springs than long spings; especially the smaller (#1) coilsprings. As these get weak I will replace one sping as this seems to power the trap back up to where pull outs are minimal. My #1's are in need of a new spring in the next few years, the second time since they were bought almost 30 years ago.

I should copy this to the favorite MYTH thread.The temperature of boiling water WILL NOT affect the temper of spring steel.In reality we are talking about annealing.There are ample technical refferences available for those that wish to learn more.

Yes it is possible to work steel untill it becomes "weaker".The amount of work is measured in cycles with a spring(the spring working within it's design parameters).This is caused by changes in the crystaline structure of the steel and degradation of the steels structure itself.A piece of steel may look homogeneous but is far from it.So these changes are not readily seen with the naked eye.The number of cycles necessary to show meaningful changes is far in excess of what traps require.

The main cause for weakened springs is corrosion(rust).This lessens the the diamiter of coil spring wire and the thickness of the leaf on longsprings.Less steel,less spring tension.Again it is not easy to see at times.

If you are haveing trouble with springs degradeing in an unacceptable time frame the first place I would look is at the protective coating you are useing on them and how you take care of your equipment in general

Rust is the main culprit, like Ric said. Steel is not really the impenetrable solid it seems to be. Under the microscope it has a crystalline structure. Oxidation (rust) can penetrate below the surface in steel, weakening it more than you might expect.

You might think of this like a piece of wood that is attacked my termites. The termites eat away at the wood a little at a time, until it is no longer serviceable.

The last place you can put the blame for weak trap springs is your boiling kettle.

Hal