or are some done already?---Don't know how i WOULD be able to heat treat them myself---thanks

The heat treating not only hardens the metal, it also makes it a more brittle.  If the flat were brittle, you couldn't bend them the way we have to.  So, I believe all flats come "soft".

I understand heat treating is pretty easy, though I've never done it.  Read up on "quenching" here, in the archives and on the various other builder boards.  Then head to Home Despot for a can of MAPP gas and a burner.  They're not very expensive, < $35, IIRC.

HTH,

JakeA

Your main concerns would be the rails and your FCG mounting holes on the receiver. I believe Jake is right about the state of ALL flats as being untempered. There was a real good article posted last week about it. Try the search button.

In a nutshell, tempering is done in 2 stages:

#1. Heat the steel to red hot then quench it in either water or oil.

#2. Re-heat steel again, but instead of cooling it fast, submerge the part in a slow buring oil like DOT 3 brake fluid. Use some lighter fluid as an igniter and let the oil simply burn away.