My understanding is that in order to harden copper alloys, you heat it and allow it to cool slowly. My question is how slowly? For lack of an annealing oven, what would people suggest? I have some annealing blankets that my wife uses for her glass beads. Is that sufficient?
Thanks
Kenric
Hardening brass/bronze
-
talaananthes
- Archive Member
- Posts: 2695
- Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:50 pm
Assuming that your understanding is correct (Work hardening will definitely help harden it. I don't know about heating, haven't worked with brass or bronze, but just copper is annealed by heating, doesn't matter how you cool it.),
Get a big pile of ash, stick it into that, and that will insulate it as it cools. Works for steel, I'd assume it would work for other metals as well.
Get a big pile of ash, stick it into that, and that will insulate it as it cools. Works for steel, I'd assume it would work for other metals as well.
Re: Hardening brass/bronze
kenrickb wrote:My understanding is that in order to harden copper alloys, you heat it and allow it to cool slowly. My question is how slowly? For lack of an annealing oven, what would people suggest? I have some annealing blankets that my wife uses for her glass beads. Is that sufficient?
Thanks
Kenric
Basically you set it on the counter, depends on the apllication.
Damon wrote:In their own little world they are like this huge evil overlord however in the grand scheme of things they are just this sad little hamster going squeek squeek squeek in their own little ball.