Another book to look at is
This book was published and printed in the UK first in 1933 the newer
copies are just facsimile copies. This shows one copy in the UK at a
somewhat reasonable price. Most of the rest are offered by greedy
thieves. They were on close out here a few years ago for about $10.00
US. I didn’t buy one then but later bought one from the UK at 13
pounds 95. It is a good old guide.
jesse
Don’t worry about the scientific stuff, I am a chemist (B.Sc) and we
did all that exciting electrons stuff (that’s the electrons being
excited, not me!!!) in physical chemistry (it’s in the dim and
distant recesses of my brain somewhere!). The thing that confuses me
is the complete contradiction of advice I’ve received from different
people - I don’t know about cherry red, to some people it’s black and
to others it’s clearly white!!! Anneal for a brief moment, anneal for
enough time for the crystals to grow (ie, a much longer time).
Glowing, no definitely not glowing, etc, etc.
But hey, anything like this is going to bring out different opinions
of different people although you’d think with something as scientific
as this, there would be one right answer.
Helen (Preston, UK where the sun is actually shining today, for the
first time in weeks, maybe we’ll get a summer after all).
I hope that trying to relate this process to the color of the cherry, I did not cause anybody going to the supermarket and seeing yellow cherry on display
Leonid (and all), I would let this all pass, except that there is a
pretty good chance of gross misunderstanding in it. The colors of
hot metals are ALREADY DEFINED. Cherry red is defined as that color
that’s about 1500F-1550F. The temperature at which you can get a
pretty good hardness on tool steel by quenching it from there. This
comes from antiquity, and really isn’t optional. It doesn’t matter
what color anyone’s cherrys are. The danger is that when somebody
says to heat to cherry red for annealing, and does so, knowing that
cherry red is around 1500F. It is the last red before orange, not
the first red. I know and see that Leonid understands the process
really well, it’s just a matter of semantics. The problem being that
many people are taught the colors of heat, me included, and we can’t
just make up language as we go along - that’s what language is - a
common understanding.
The problem being that many people are taught the colors of heat, me included, and we can't just make up language as we go along - that's what language is - a common understanding.
I was taught “a dark red, a black red, in a darkened room.” This
thread has made me realize I need to photograph the color, print
it out, and laminate it to show to students.
Elaine
http://www.CreativeTextureTools.com ™
Hard to Find Tools for Metal Clay
It is a wrong emphasis on quench or not to quench. While important, far more important is that metal should be stressed equally before annealing
_How do you stress the metal equally before annealing? And/or how do
you determine the metal has been stressed equally before annealing?
I don't know about cherry red, to some people it's black and to others it's clearly white!!! Anneal for a brief moment, anneal for enough time for the crystals to grow
Helen, I’ll be first in line to hope this is my last post on this
tired subject. There is no misunderstanding, there’s only
misFirst - annealing is a time/temperature curve. Add
temperature, reduce time. Add enough temperature, and it becomes no
time, as in “It’s done”. That’s annealing temperature - no time.
Second - if you heat something up hot enough, it glows - “becomes
incandescent”. The colors of temperature have been known since the
before dark ages, and are well defined. If you are heating copper or
gold, the reddish color of the metal can fool the eye, but that’s
only light. If you heat a piece of steel, a piece of copper and a
piece of glass all to 1500F in a dark room, they will all be roughly
the same color, because it’s not color, it’s incandescence. The
terminology of hot color mostly comes from blacksmithing and steel,
because it’s important to them and because it’s easy to see the
colors in the neutral metal. The rest of the world uses the same
terminology because it is the common language. These have been
quantified in great detail, as I’m including in some links below. I
would simply suggest that if someone thinks that cherry red is
something else, that they go back to school. What happens on an
atomic level is handy to know, somewhat theoretical (we can’t
actually watch it happening), and esoteric. The important thing to
know is how to get soft, undamaged metal. Again, the colors under
about 1000F are for oxide layers in steel.
http://www.threeplanes.net/toolsteel.html
http://www.knives.com/heatreat.html
Steel Temper Color and Hardness Chart : anvilfire.com articles for blacksmiths and metalworkers only to 1000F, but show how deep people get
http://www.engnath.com/public/harden.htm
The Complete Modern Blacksmith - Alexander Weygers - Google Books
http://www.beautifuliron.com/usingthe.htm
I could probably find more, but enough. Cherry red is mentioned in
these a couple of times (it is “full red” in others). Some go
farther and call the 1400F area Cherry red, and 1500F bright cherry
red. It’s just not a matter of opinion, mine or others. It is
quantified and defined. Learn it.
I would let this all pass, except that there is a pretty good chance of gross misunderstanding in it. The colors of hot metals are ALREADY DEFINED.
True, but in the process of repeat annealing, the resulting layer of
fine silver on the surface often obscures the real color to the
beginner. If they don’t know this can happen, they often over heat
metal and quench it, thinking that it was white all along.
While I always say that the ‘right way’ is the one that works for
you, I don’t subscribe to the must be cherry red to be annealed
school. I do repousse pieces with sterling, copper-sterling mokume
billets, and 18K-sterling bimetal that require countless rounds of
hammering and annealing. If I heated to cherry on the laminate
metals, I’d have an alloyed mess.
Leonid and Jim will probably groan at this very non technical advise,
but the easiest way to determine when a piece is annealed is by
marking a big X across it with a black Sharpie marker. (I think
someone suggested this already.) Heat all over and when the ink has
disappeared, it’s done and safe to quench. It’s a great way to help
people train themselves to get a feel for the timing and what to look
for when annealing. It’s also great for annealing coils of fine
silver wire.
Victoria
Victoria Lansford
_How do you stress the metal equally before annealing? And/or how do you determine the metal has been stressed equally before annealing?
In repousse by the sound the piece makes. In jewellery by the amount
of deformation piece undergoes. Each metal has different modulus (
how much work it can take ) and jeweller has to keep track of it. The
example of what not to do is take ring shank, hammer to death a half
of it, do not touch the other half and anneal it. That would be
unequal stressing of metal.
leonid surpin
Hi John,
Second - if you heat something up hot enough, it glows - "becomes incandescent". The colors of temperature have been known since the before dark ages, and are well defined. If you are heating copper or gold, the reddish color of the metal can fool the eye, but that's only light. If you heat a piece of steel, a piece of copper and a piece of glass all to 1500F in a dark room, they will all be roughly the same color, because it's not color, it's incandescence.
To continue to beat the dead horse.
The color that heated objects radiate is a little more variable than
you suggest. There is the “ideal black body radiator” that will
radiate a specific spectra when heated to a specific temperature.
But real world objects have a property called emissivity that is the
ratio of how they radiate when compared to the ideal black body.
Blackened steel glows much brighter (has a higher emissivity) than
highly polished silver so reading the color of a piece of heated
steel is much easier than the brightly polished silver just because
there is more light given off. If you take your hypothetical steel,
copper and glass and heat to the same temperature your eye will read
the as slightly different colors in part due to the shear difference
in brilliance of the radiated light. Also there is a variation in
the radiated spectra for different elements (the basis of optical
spectrography ) so there is actually a minor color difference at the
same temperature for different elements. So the colors are a good
rough rule of thumb but not as useful as a pyrometer 
Jim
James Binnion
@James_Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts
360-756-6550
Leonid and Jim will probably groan at this very non technical advise,
but the easiest way to determine when a piece is annealed is by
marking a big X across it with a black Sharpie marker
Actually, no, Victoria, I think that’s a great way to get a feel for
it. And people will find that it’s really not that hot…
Dear John,
Thank you for your reply. I’m sorry my question and subsequent
answers have bored you so much. I myself pointed out that it
shouldn’t just be a matter of opinion if you’d cared to look and it
wasn’t me who asked what colour cherries are! Whilst your advice is
very helpful, I was quite upset at your tone.
I am friendly when corresponding but I’ve noticed that certain
individuals can be quite terse in their responses to honest
questions.
Helen (who will think twice before asking such stupid questions in
the future!)
so there is actually a minor color difference at the same temperature for different elements. So the colors are a good rough rule of thumb but not as useful as a pyrometer :-)
First, Helen - I apologize if my tone was rough, but it really
wasn’t directed at you at all, personally. It was directed at those
who need to turn such a simple thing as annealing into some sort of
ordeal. You heat it (silver, copper, most YG) to 900 - 1100F max,
and it’s done. And that the colors of hot metals are long and well
defined, and people should learn them instead of trying to make
stuff up. As far as Jim’s post, above, yes, all that you say is
true, but on a practical level, which is really what’s useful for
99% of the readers here, a rough rule of thumb is plenty good
enough. A 10 degree or even 50 degree difference in gauging color is
really not going to alter the final outcome in any real way. For
your typical bench jeweler annealing 1/4 oz of silver wire a
pyrometer or a dedicated, calibrated annealing kiln is pretty silly.
Colors are how about 99% of shop work is done, until you get into
refiners and seriously large shops. I myself will put large coils of
wire into the kiln turned up to 1000F, but since it’s not really
calibrated it’s probably LESS accurate than my eye, but it works
just fine. It’s just not that complicated - heat it up, it’s done.
I'm sorry my question and subsequent answers have bored you so much
Helen, I already apologized in another post and said that my comments
weren’t directed at you, specifically, and some other things. I
always remember that there are - how many now? I looked it up -
Orchid gets 240,000 unique visitors a month - something like 8500
members. There are jewelers who only solder settings on shanks, there
are setters who only set, and various other tasks. For the general
worker, though - someone like me - annealing is the one task that we
will do the most times in our careers. I’ve probably annealed
something literally about a million times. I made a pendant bale
today and stamped it 14k before I bent it. That meant that it needed
annealing before bending, just for the stamp. Hammer, anneal, roll,
anneal, bend, anneal, punch, anneal, round, anneal, straighten,
anneal. It’s the most common task in metals, most likely, and the
whole point I’ve been trying to get to is that it is just not
complicated and there’s no reason to make it so. It’s interesting and
useful to understand what’s happening. It’s also interesting to know
how a refiner does it to 10,000 ounces at a time, but really what it
boils down to is that you, the bench worker, likely has an inch of
hard wire that needs to be made soft. And if you warm it to around
900F it will become soft - no muss, no fuss. My frustration is in no
way with you, it’s with the tangents - well, but the ideal way is to
use a $5,000 annealing kiln, or use laser pumped kryptonite
pyrometers. For one inch of silver wire? Huh? Ok, if someone wants
to, or runs 10,000 ounces or big billets or has a bucket of cash in
the back. But those people already know how to do that - it’s their
business. Almost everybody, almost every day, has to soften one inch
of silver wire - soften the tips of wires they pounded on - ring
shanks, on and on. Simple, everyday tasks. And you just heat it, and
it’s soft. No muss, no fuss.
Helen (who will think twice before asking such stupid questions in the future!)
There are no stupid questions; if you have a question you are not
sure of the answer to, is it stupid to ask for help, or is it stupid
to plunge ahead full speed into the uncharted waters? Ask: how people
respond to you inquiry is more a measure of them than it is of you.
Hi John,
I apologize if my tone was rough, but it really wasn't directed at you at all, personally. It was directed at those who need to turn such a simple thing as annealing into some sort of ordeal.
Yes me too, as I said last night I sent my email and then regretted
it. As for the annealing thing. Victoria Lansford and possibly a
couple of others suggested the Sharpie marker thing so I tried that
today. I don’t have a Sharpie but have some other make of permanent
marker that I used to use on pyrex beakers in the chemistry lab at
university. I have a packet of them so thought I’d try it. It worked
a treat. So I annealed it successfully but then still messed up big
time when soldering a bezel closed as my soldering tweezers are too
strong and the whole thing just shattered when it got up to the
temperature needed for the solder to flow! (The metal was quite thick
so as it heated, the nice, tight joint to be soldered kept opening
up, hence holding it closed with tweezers). It’s been a bad day. I
hope I’m not the only one who has days when absolutely nothing goes
right and you end up contributing to your scrap pile rather than
making a decent piece of jewellery!
Helen
Preston, UK
Dear John et al,
For anyone out there thinking we’ve had some sort of argument, we
haven’t. It’s just that I read the first email, replied to it rather
rashly and regretted it, but in the meantime John had apologised, so
had I, then he received my rash reply so posted this one, etc, etc.
It can all get a bit confusing and sort of out of synch with the
nature of a forum, with a day’s delay between everything but it’s
all hunky dory now.
I think I’ve got it now, the annealing that is. Thanks to you John
and all the others who have helped. Let’s bury the dead horse now
rather than continually flogging it 
Helen
Preston, UK
Simple, everyday tasks. And you just heat it, and it's soft. No muss, no fuss.
That may be true for you and many of the other experienced jewelers
and metalsmiths on the list who have calibrated their eye over years
of experience. But not so simple for beginners and frankly a large
number of metalsmiths and jewelers I have seen over-anneal, either
by being too hot or too often or both. So they blame the metal or
some other reason but not the fact they fried the metal or never
worked it enough between annealings. The difference in color output
for a dull oxidized and brightly polished surface is almost a factor
of 10. Also the surface you are annealing on will typically be
glowing much brighter than the metal and then there is the bright
yellow sodium flare from the borax in the flux. Yes 900 degrees is a
barely visible red in a dark room ( hard to do without blacking out
the windows) but in any kind of light it is virtually impossible to
see that glow. Flux has not even cleared at that temperature and will
still have a slightly frosty white appearance, the lowest melting
fluxes available to us (white paste flux) don’t fully melt till 1100
F and most are somewhat higher. In every shop I have ever been in it
is way too brightly lit to see the glow from polished metal at 900 F
or probably even 1000 F. I routinely heat material to forge in a
calibrated kiln to 1100 F, in the ambient shop light I can not see
it glow, you need to shade it to see the glow. So I may be wrong
about this but I believe that most of us over heat the metal when we
use a torch to anneal because there is no reliable feedback for the
correct temperature.
Regards,
Jim
James Binnion
@James_Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts
360-756-6550
Hi Helen
When I am to solder a large, heavy bezel, I position it on a flat
solder brick with T Pins, which are used in sewing. They stick into
the soft brick at strategic spots to hold the join together, put
solder on the inside of the bezel, well fluxed, and with a flame
that won’t burn through the metal = watch to see the bright silver
line as the solder flows. This is where you should practice using
different degrees of flame - I have my students take scrap and test
out the different sizes of flame when soldering - soon you will know
that it doesn’t take a blow torch to solder.
Lotsa Luck
RMC
I hope I'm not the only one who has days when absolutely nothing goes right
Think of scrap as your retirement account!
Hi Helen.
It's been a bad day. I hope I'm not the only one who has days when absolutely nothing goes right and you end up contributing to your scrap pile rather than making a decent piece of jewellery!
Take heart. Yes, I think perhaps all have had such a day.
Another, more positive way to look at it is that you’ve just spent a
day at school. Tuition varies and as always, you are responsible for
what you can make of the lesson.
You seem to be learning at a fantastic rate and from your posts I
gather that you are very active and very interested. Keep trying to
work out what went right and what went wrong for clues you can use
tomorrow. Fortunately, we have Orchid to help make sense of what has
happened so the learning curve is so-o much better.
Thanks, Orchid!
Pam Chott
www.songofthephoenix.com