How to harden nickel silver

That is a copper alloy so it will be work hardened.

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works every time it is tried!

I'm not super sure but .....600F two hours. Les

replying to PIW, Rosemary wrote: So, if I place a nickel silver sheet in a kiln at 600 degrees for two hours it will be hardened?

No. You can't heat-harden nickel-silver (50% - 80% Cu; 5% - 30% Ni; 10% - 35% Zn). It will work-harden, but not heat-harden.

There are some nickel alloys, such as certain Monels, Inconels, and Hastelloy, that can be heat-hardened by solution heat-treatment. But not the material commonly called "nickel-silver" (which contains no silver).

If you hear otherwise, your source is wrong.

I think they're slightly confused. Precipitation hardening of Sterling silver is possible in the 600f range, although it only takes about an hour. However it doesn't work for Nickel silver. For that, work hardening is your only option.

Paul K. Dickman

Right. And "nickel-silver" was commonly known as "German silver," at least through the 1950s. To engineers, it's a type of bronze, with no silver content at all.

The copper-nickel alloy "Monel K500" can be hardened by heat treatment through precipitation of the added aluminum and titanium:

-jsw

Yeah, as I pointed out above, some grades of Monel and Inconel, and Hastelloy, which is a nickel-containing superalloy, can be hardened through solution treatment and precipitation.

But it doesn't apply to nickel-silver. Monel does look a lot like nickel-silver but it isn't the same thing.