[Jewelry making - Article 00747] - Re: [Orchid] To quench or not to quench, that is the question

[James Binnion]

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>     Quenching while the metal is red hot will temper it, yet quenching
>     when it is gray hot will make it 25% softer than air cooling it.
>     (Gray hot just means really hot but not glowing red any longer.) 

    Tempering is a term for a heat treating process in steel and means
    to make softer and tougher by heating the steel to somewhere between
    300 F and 1100 F after it is hardened. 

    If you are talking about sterling silver the softest you can get
    sterling is to quench from about 1382 F at which point all the copper
    is fully dissolved in the sterling. By quenching from this
    temperature you lock the sterling into a single phase form and this
    is the softest it will get. This definitely is a red heat. At this
    high a temperature there is a danger of fracturing it if its crystal
    structure is not in very good shape such as from improper annealing
    or other mistreatment. This is hotter than most solders can tolerate
    and they may be partially or fully molten so it is not normally safe
    to try this high a temperature heat treatment on soldered work. 

James Binnion
jbin AT mokume-gane.com
James Binnion Metal Arts
http://www.mokume-gane.com
360-756-6550
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