How to harden brass

Mar 27, 2016 1 Replies

I have some gizmos to make and one way would be to silver-solder two brass bits together, but after that they may be too soft. Is there a method for *increasing* hardness of brass aside from work-hardening?


For ordinary yellow brass, no. The only way to harden it is by work-hardening.

Some other copper alloys can be hardened by a variety of heat-treating methods. Beryllium copper can be age-hardened like heat-treatable aluminum grades. Some obscure copper alloys that contain nickel or chromium can be hardened by equally obscure heat-treating methods (transformation hardening; heat-soaked phase transformation).

This is not hobbyist stuff, for the most part, but you can handle beryllium-copper age-hardening if you have some good temperature control at around 700 deg. C.

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