Thread: anealing service

Originally Posted by Tussock

You need to protect the rest of the case from the heat, in a bath with cooling liquid.

Annealing slowly is fine. Believe it or not, cases anneal at room temperature. Just very very slowly. Work hardening is a process where the metal is deformed, and defects accumulate in its crystal structure. In order for metal to stretch smoothly, it needs a nice, homogenous crystal structure, where each atom can slide past the adjacent atoms unimpeded. The defects from deformation (work) created gaps etc where that impede that smooth slide. These correct themselves over time, as the brass goes back to its preferred structure, but its very slow.

You can speed up that healing process by heating the metal up. This opens up the crystal structure and lets everything relax back to where it wants to be faster. Fast or slow, the end result is the same. No more defects, and soft, homogenous metal. 5 seconds at 500 degrees or 5 minutes at 150 degrees, same result (I made those numbers up but you get the idea).

Because it would be more even, my preference would be slow annealing in an even heat, like an oven. Then there is no hot spot like with a blow torch.

The you just have to keep the lower part of the case cool. For that you can use a water bath.

I have not done it, but it should do a good job.

Not sure you are correct on annealing all the case including the web and over a long time. There is a report on this and I will try to locate it again.