How to anneal metal?

Annealing in jewelry is an essential technique to know when making DIY jewelry in precious metal or not. Indeed, it will be almost impossible to work a metal without going through this step.
You want to know the right way to anneal metal? In this video, Lucie explains you how to anneal metal to have a safe gesture.

Why anneal ?

Naturally, a metal will harden as a result of the mechanical stresses and strains it undergoes during its manufacture such as hammering, twisting, bending, shaping, pressing, drawing or rolling. This is called work hardening. And the more it is work-hardened, the harder it is and thus more difficult to deform.
To reduce the hardness and give it back its malleability (making it soft) and ductility (ability of the metal to deform plastically without breaking), the only solution is to heat treat it by annealing.

What is annealing? Annealing consists of heating a metal to a certain temperature with a flashlight in order to give it back all its mechanical properties to work it more easily. The annealing step is very important, it can be done as many times as necessary during the design of a jewel.

How to anneal metal ?

The Material

Annealing metal does not require much material. You will simply need

• a ceramic honeycomb soldering plate,
• a pair of soldering tongs (or fire tongs),
• a flashlight, a jeweler's block
• a container of water at room temperature.

The heating

The technique is quite simple. Apply the flame of your flashlight by enveloping the piece to be annealed as much as possible. The flame of your tool should be medium: neither too soft nor too strong and not too oxidizing. It should be slightly yellow at the end.
The metal plate should be heated evenly and the annealing temperature should be maintained until an even red color is obtained over the entire piece. When this even red color is achieved throughout, you can stop heating it.

To note: It is ideal to even put yourself in a dark room to properly observe the reaction of the metal and the color of the piece.

Please note that our gas flashlight can help you with small parts or very fine work such as rings. But if you want to anneal larger metal parts, you will have to invest in a more substantial tool such as a Brazilian flashlight or a welding lamp.

Tempering

After the annealing stage, the metal must be immediately immersed in water at room temperature to be cooled. This thermal shock stops the heating process. The piece must then be derusted to remove all traces of oxidation left by the flame of the flashlight and regain a nice uniform color.

However, there are some exceptions where dipping the coin in water becomes risky:

• If it is a silver piece with soldering, it is advisable to let it cool in the open air. Indeed, since there is often zinc in the silver solder, quenching may weaken the solder joints and/or break them.
• The same is true for brass, which is an alloy of zinc and copper. It is best to place it on a jeweler's pile and wait for it to cool before working on it.

Once the annealing is complete, all you have to do is continue your creation.