Annealing Copper Sheet Metal

Making it more malleable.

Annealing copper sheet metal.

Annealing is a technique that all metalsmiths will. Copper silver and brass can be either cooled slowly in air or quickly by quenching in water. How to anneal and firescale copper sheet metal. Copper is one of the metals that hardens when it is worked bent stretched.

You can anneal any grade and thickness of copper as long as you have a flame that can transmit enough heat to the metal. This is especially so in metals that become work hardened like copper and brass although brass can become very brittle and fracture easily especially if it has been heated. If all you want to do is color the copper a small torch will likely do the job but you are not likely to be able to actualy anneal any signifiacnt size piece. Darlene armstrong director and co owner of the denver school of metal arts shows you how to anneal a sheet of copper using an acetylene torch.

This video shows you how to safely use the torches in this classroom as well as anneal a piece of copper and add firescale. In the case of ferrous metals such as steel annealing is performed by heating the material generally until glowing for a while and then slowly letting it cool to room temperature in still air. Annealing is a method of softening metal that has been hardened by one method or another.