work hardening in brass

I do know that to anneal brass cartridge necks it is necessary not just to heat them but to quench them as well. Typical practice is to stand them in a tray of water, heat the necks, then knock them over.

John Martin

As far as I know, the quench is only for convenience. It makes it easy to identify the ones which you have already annealed, and you don't have to reach in with tongs of some type to pick them up when you are done.

Though a reason for doing this might be to make sure that the base does not get overheated, as you want it to remain as worked. It does not get repeatedly stretched the way the necks do, so it does not need annealing, and if you *do* anneal it, it is perhaps more likely to deform into the ejector notch and perhaps bind the bolt.

The brass, itself, anneals just as well with air cooling.

I would, in the case of the project proposed, more worry about what kind of solder was used to attach the base to the rest of the item. If silver solder, no problem. If plain old soft solder, you might have to reassemble it when you are done. (But -- that might make it easier to reshape it. :-)

Good Luck, DoN.

I usually dip them neck first, in a melting pot of molten lead at about 650F. Then of course, drop em into a bucket.

" We have all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare...Thanks to AOL and WebTv, we know this is not possible."

I wouldn't worry about using a torch. Set a soft reducing flame and gently warm the part until you get a faint glow of red in dull light (or in the dark) , then let it cool. Should be dead soft. No need to quench, they do that with cartridges to prevent annealing the head.

You probably know to not try to do any straightening while it's hot. Brass is hot short..

Harold

But it makes these really neat crystal patterns where it breaks, when you try to "forge" it at the wrong temperature, as I learned when I was about 15 and tried to straighten out my mother's thick brass ashtray...that I had warped all to hell using it as a crucible for lead... d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

Yep! It should be worked cold to avoid that very thing. Did she ever forgive you? Not only for cracking it, but for using it as a crucible?

Damn, don't kids do stupid things? Brings to mind the time I drilled a hole in a 5# ingot of lead with my father's drill press, using what I recall was a 3/8" twist drill, off center, for kicks, and the thing got away from me. I was very fortunate that when the drill broke it wasn't aimed at me.

Harold

Oh, yeah, I have a great mom. She'll put up with anything for the sake of science.

However, 40 years later, she still manages to repeat the story at every holiday get-together about how I used to lap the dashpots of my S.U. carburettors on the dining room table, and how we'd have to eat on TV trays for a day or two afterwards because the kerosene smell would like to knock you out. Maybe she hasn't forgiven me for that one.

That's quite a panic when you see some killer-sized glob of metal spinning around on a drill press, ain't it?

-- Ed Huntress

Well, now that my hair is totally gray, I can live without it!

Harold

The foot is separate now, it screws on, so solder isn't a problem.

Great how that works out. I've still got the story about how my dad welded a sears screwdriver onto the box while trying to do some electrical work. And the one about my brother filling up the crankcase of a 56 chevy with water.

Fortunately none of my relatives, nor their stories about me, are accessible to this ngs inhabitants....

Jim

I like the line.... "I don't remember much about it, but it keeps coming up at family gatherings...." / mark

jim rozen wrote:

That sounds like it'd be just about right for drying out some stick welding rods I've had sitting around for years.

Comments?

Jeff (Who is really looking for an excuse to buy a thermocouple gauge.)

Jeff, have a look at

"Ed Huntress" (clip) how I used to lap the dashpots of my S.U. carburettors on the dining room table (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Well, how about MY mother. I brought home some printing plates that I found in the trash, and I inked them up and ran them through the wringer on our washing machine. Mom didn't object. Or when I used her sewing machine to perforate paper.

carburettors

That's a good mom. Do you suppose they still make them like that?

-- Ed Huntress

By contrast, when I took my class in electricity in high school, the first thing the teacher taught us was to ground washing machines----obviously at a time before the ground wire was an integral part of typical wiring (back in '55, it was), and death by electrocution while washing wasn't exactly unheard of.

First thing I did when I got home was run a ground wire to an overhead water pipe and connect it to the washer. My mother went to her grave secure in the knowledge that I had tried to kill her by electrocution, and no amount of explaining what the wire was for changed her mind. She refused to wash clothes until the wire was removed. Ignorance, and lack of trust in one's offspring, can create some very bad memories.

Harold

Jeez, she thought you were trying to kill her? I locked my mom in the basement once, when I was 7 and she was being particularly churlish one day, but she would have stuck her fingers in a socket if I asked her to give me a hand with my electricity project.

-- Ed Huntress

You're a lucky man, Ed. Things between me and my mother deteriorated quite badly at the end, so much so that I no longer spoke to her. Mind you, I'd have much rather had a loving relationship with her, but that was not to be. I have no doubt that she formed the part of my personality that makes me less than fun to know. Some things are hard to overcome.

Harold