Annealing steel before engraving

I'm just starting on my first muzzle loading lock. As it came, the frizzen is too hard to engrave, so I know that will have to be annealed before it can be worked on. I'm wondering if the rest of the lock plate and cock would benefit from being annealed before I start on them too.

I obviously won't mess around with annealiing the barrel or tang. Too much rik of catastrophic failure somewhere down the line.

What do you guys do?

I took Jim Chambers class on building locks. If you would like, I can give you his formula for hardening and tempering-back the frizzen, if I can find it, - I assume that you already know how to anneal the frizzen. I have never engraved a frizzen, but one word of caution: when you finish hardening the frizzen it will be black and ugly. It will need a lot of sanding (a file won't touch it) elbow grease to get it looking shiny. I am not sure what this will do to the engraving. I, personally, would engrave the frizzen extra deep, just in case.
As for the lock plate and the cock, I would think that they would be soft and perfect for engraving. If you are worried, cut a little on the back surface of the components first to see how soft the steel is.

Les Schowe

Frizzens are not generally engraved. Not only for the reasons Les gave but also fooling around with it will void the warranty on the lock. The lock makers want their frizzens to spark which is why they come already hardened. Other than the frizzen, sear, and tumbler, there are no other hardened components on ML parts. You may choose to case harden the lockplate, breechplug, tang, and the trigger guard if it is steel. Otherwise, don't fool around heating anything else. Lockplates are hardened for wearability around the tumbler hole otherwise it will eventually wear an egg-shaped hole. The other parts I mentioned are usually color hardened for appearances, not because they have to be hard. If you are going to blue or brown them, don't bother. Same with the lockplate.....you only need to case harden it around the hole, not the whole plate.

i've done maybe a ton of the front stuffers. never did a frizzen, tho. any steel i cut was nice to work with. i cant say the same for brass. any part that is sandcast, will likely give you fits ! there are almost always voids and pits lurking just below the surface. just waiting to laugh when you begin cussing. the barrel will cut very nicely. i never had one that was beyond soft & nice to work with. send a few fotos of your result, please.