Annealing Gas Checks
- Thread starter 4and1
- Start date
Rick H
Well-Known Member
My guess is too hot or too long. I anneal the same way but my checks just turn a blotchy darker color. I set mine on a 1/4" steel plate set on a gas burner til they discolor and let them air cool. Sure made crimping them on my tight Mountain Mold 45-70 mold a lot easier. Might try tumbling them in corn cobs to remove some scale and give them a try.
The left is annealed the right as issued. The color on the pictures is a bit darker than they appear in real life.
The left is annealed the right as issued. The color on the pictures is a bit darker than they appear in real life.
Ian
Notorious member
Next time make a pipe "bomb" and put a scrap of paper towel in with the checks. Throw it in a mound of charcoal briquets and dig it out of the cool ashes later. The oxygen inside will spend itself burning up the paper towel before it has a chance to react with the copper.
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Dusty Bannister
Well-Known Member
I think one more caution if you use the nipple and two caps to make your gas check holder for annealing. Drill a small hole to vent the pressure when the air heats up. Some suggest leaving the caps a little loose too. That is a process that I have never done.
Rally
NC Minnesota
My daughter gave me a pizza oven, like bars have, she won it at work in some kind of drawing or something. I just put the checks or strips I cut the flashing into, on a cookie sheet and bake them for 11 minutes. Can't tell you the temp inside, but I can feel the difference in the metal. Like CZ93x62, the flaring tool make a world of difference for my checks and bases also.
Joshua
Taco Aficionado/Salish Sea Pirate/Part-Time Dragon
So before I was a submarine welder, and before I was a pipe-fitter/pipe-welder, and before I was a production blacksmith, I was an art student.
I fancied myself as being a bit of a sculptor. I took a series of “Small Scale Metal Sculpture” classes. One of them was devoted to the process of raising vessels with hammers over stakes. Now this process required us to anneal our copper plate three or four times. The great thing about copper is that you can anneal and then quench and it doesn’t harden the material. A benefit of this is that most all of the scale will pop off when you quench it.
So long story short when I have annealed gas checks I have quenched, dried and then seated. They won’t have the same “copper color” but they won’t be flaky either.
If any one is interested here is a link to a PDF that explains in detail the raising process. It’s a pretty cool process that has been all but replaced in our modern world with metal spinning and metal stamping in closed dies. Yet in a way it is fundamentally related to how our brass cartridges are manufactured today.
I fancied myself as being a bit of a sculptor. I took a series of “Small Scale Metal Sculpture” classes. One of them was devoted to the process of raising vessels with hammers over stakes. Now this process required us to anneal our copper plate three or four times. The great thing about copper is that you can anneal and then quench and it doesn’t harden the material. A benefit of this is that most all of the scale will pop off when you quench it.
So long story short when I have annealed gas checks I have quenched, dried and then seated. They won’t have the same “copper color” but they won’t be flaky either.
If any one is interested here is a link to a PDF that explains in detail the raising process. It’s a pretty cool process that has been all but replaced in our modern world with metal spinning and metal stamping in closed dies. Yet in a way it is fundamentally related to how our brass cartridges are manufactured today.
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RBHarter
West Central AR
Tried a bit of hammer forming in days long past . Mostly what I learned from it was that if I were left alone for about a week I could figure out how to get a triple compound curve formed , flat , and smooth . It also be about $3,000 less expensive to call a guy who knows the guy with the spare / salvage parts or the dies that stamped the original part . Replacement with a glass composite also never left the table .
Joshua
Taco Aficionado/Salish Sea Pirate/Part-Time Dragon
I’ve got an old friend that I knew from my surfing days. He was a tattoo artist and a gear head. He used to do things like build a pan head chopper in his kitchen (cause he didn’t have a garage).
He also built lead sleds and did a fare amount of body work. Now that he is older he does less of that stuff. His new hobby is silver smithing. He is really into big pieces of turquoise and opals in custom bezel settings.
It’s really no different than chopping a car down, doing all the lead work, and buying a custom window and glazing it in. One is just way bigger than the other one.
Josh
He also built lead sleds and did a fare amount of body work. Now that he is older he does less of that stuff. His new hobby is silver smithing. He is really into big pieces of turquoise and opals in custom bezel settings.
It’s really no different than chopping a car down, doing all the lead work, and buying a custom window and glazing it in. One is just way bigger than the other one.
Josh
Charles Graff
Moderator Emeritus
not to hot, that is just the varnish or whatever cooking off. Use them as is, load and shoot. I have a small cast iron skillet which I fill with gas checks, put on the kitchen stove and stir them a time or two as they heat. Mine look like yours...no problem.