Excellent. I also melted the first set and since then never again.
Quenching may also remove the ‚slag‘ by thermal shock, not sure what it is but I explain it to myself as part of the alloy melting out. Quenching in oil works too but lots of smoke, be warned.
I usually just put them on my electric stove.
And if you aren’t in a hurry to use they can air dry. It’s the heating and cooling that works. Not the rate of cooling (IMHO)
I usually run them over a flat piece of emery cloth or wet/dry sand paper
Absolutely. Just a little bit more stuff that remains on there but I usually don’t have anything to quench and just throw them in a corner until cool.
A couple of days ago I picked up a used toaster oven at a thrift shop to use for baking paint on smaller things (it’ll hold a 9" pizza, says so, and good height too). I’ll be using this to heat things with, and will try it for hearting those copper seals, and just letting them cool in the toaster oven too.
It’s worked quite well for baking paint on things.
For copper to uneal it needs to get red hot.
That’s 650° - 700°C.
Quenching it on water or alcohol cleans all the residues.
Household propane torch gets to about 1100C? Super easy, takes about 15 seconds including dropping into water.
Agreed, the toaster oven doesn’t have a chance to heat the copper hot enough, neither does a full size range as another suggested.
Have propane and mapp gas torches, will travel.
A coil on an electric stove gets hot enough.
The other comment, as I recall, was that they put it in the oven.
Laying it on the cooktop coil, okay, should as the coil itsel gets red hot, but will it stick to the coil? Curious who had tried that?
It seems simpler, to me, to use a torch to heat it.
Although, I do occasionally look for a working, but cheap, full size electric range to put in my lower workshop to use to bake paint on larger items and to heat PVC and such so I can reshape it.
I was also thinking of the cooktop for heating water/boiling water for thing like testing thermostats. Heating copper banjo seals might be another use - interesting.
I usually heat mine red hot on a gas cook stove burner and drop them in a can of water to cool. It works fine.
Everyone is always saying to quench the copper washer after the annealing process. My understanding of rapid quenching of heated metals has the opposite effect of making it more malleable, so doesn’t that make the copper more brittle and harder to achieve a seal. Seems to me you would want a slower or more controlled cooling in order to get the softness desired for optimum crush when tightening the the fitting.
Not trying to be argumentative just trying to get a better understanding of the process.
Wayne, my understanding is with copper you can it either way…and I have. Both work. Quenching saves time if you are re-using right away.
And I usually then rub across emery cloth to remove any surface residues
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If you heat steel and quench it in a liquid it will harden. If you heat copper and quench it in a liquid or let it air cool it will soften it. You can take this to the bank. I called a friend that is the smartest guy I ever met. He is also the most educated man I’ve ever met. He has a chemical engineering degree, a mechanical engineering degree, and a metallurgy degree. Besides all that he is a gearhead with several old classic that he restored.
I’ll have to ask him.
But it only counts if he can juggle while riding a unicycle
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