It is the diversity of people/craftspeople/artist/methods that makes
Orchid such a fine place. I think that, especially for those novices
looking for info, sometimes that diversity becomes confusion - “but
he said to do that-but she said to do THAT”. If you heat karat gold
more than a couple of times to soldering temperature, you will see
that the oxides that form are tenacious and inpenetrable. Thus the
boric acid dip. Boric acid is in-soluble in water. It IS soluble in
methanol, for which denatured alcohol is an OK substitute. Someone
uses powder, which is fine, but the liquid will coat everything,
inside and out.
If a person has some reason to anneal gold at some temp., or quench
it in dragon’s blood, because they find that it works for them, more
power to them - there are some very specific alloys that require very
specific treatments, too. For almost everybody, and almost every
alloy, however, there just is no reason to agonize over it- warm it
to dull red -white gold a little hotter, and toss it in the pickle
when it loses it’s red, and it will be annealed. My feeling is that,
instead of looking for something that gives a 1% greater softness
(that’s all you’re talking about), just learn how to handle gold