[Jewelry making - Article 00961] - Re: [Orchid] Metal hardness and melting point

[Ian W. Wright]

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Hi,

>     thanks, but the melting points I have, it's the relative 'hardness'
>     to each other we don't have....like is copper softer or harder than
>     sterling, is brass harder or softer than copper and sterling...She
>     needs to be able to put it on a continuum of sorts. 

    As I think someone else has probably already said - it all depends.
    If you are comparing the hardness of different metals and only
    considering fully annealed metal, you could say that a series would
    be 'fine silver - copper - sterling silver - brass - bronze - steel'
    but, hammer hardened copper is harder than sterling silver and some
    alloys of brass are harder than alloys of bronze. The only real way
    to make sense of this would be to consider just two or three metals
    and compare the melting points in a fully annealed condition and
    then after a standardised amount of work hardening. (I suspect that
    the melting point will not change to a noticeable degree).
    Alternatively, you could look at the effect on melting point of
    changing the amount of one constituent of an alloy - higher
    proportions of copper in a silver alloy will raise its melting point
    but probably not in a linear fashion and so you could make a graph to
    show the effect. Why is it that these school projects always exercise
    the minds of parents more than those of the children??? 

Best Wishes
Ian

Ian W. Wright
Sheffield UK

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