What causes silver to crack during fabrication

I recently was working on a Silver bracelet. I was Annealing and pressing and metal plate. It was pretty warped so I you nailed it and placed it between charcoal blocks to straighten it. When I lifted the blocked the metal had split. What causes this and how to avoid it?

Silver is what’s called “hot short”. Don’t try to shape or bend it while hot. If its hot enough to soften, to anneal, you likely will crack it if you quench without letting it cool. Even without bending, you can crack it by quenching from too high a temperature, like once its faintly glowing. Dont quench till it stops glowing (around 900F, or lower, like under 700F) Straightening or other bending or forming can be done with silver while hot, but only at lower temps, and if its properly annealed, there is little real advantage to trying to hot form it.

Please explain “I was Annealing and pressing and metal plate.” and “So I you nailed it and placed it between charcoal blocks to straighten it.” This a process I have never heard of.

Don Meixner

My guess is autocorrect. “So I you nailed it” is most likely “So I annealed it”, and placed it between charcoal blocks to straighten. I’ve never seen anyone use charcoal blocks to flatten or straighten metal before, so I’m interested in this process too.

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Thank you Peter, I kind of suspected my attempt to flatten the metal out while it was hot might be the issue. I will remember this in the future. Thanks for coming to my rescue. Christian

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I think you might be mixing up blacksmithing methods for use in moving non-ferrous metals. different animals.