A friend makes felt animals with aluminium wire armatures. The wire work-hardens and breaks if you bend it too often.
Anyone know of a wire which can be bent a lot? I guess ardman and the like must use something frequently-bendable.
Ta
Peter Fairbrother
Indeed there is such a wire, but I guess it might be a bit too costly for that purpose: 32 carat gold.
Aluminium wire can be annealed by heating - but careful, it will melt if it is overdone.
I'd use a Calor butane or propane blowtorch.
Just don't be too quick to test it after doing the job: cave a nice cup of tea while it cools. Or, if you're impatient, quench it in cold water. (This doesn't have the same result as quenching tool steel.)
Would a paint-stripping electric heat gun be a "safe" way of annealing the aluminium? Could not overheat / melt the Ali?
I don't know the annwaling temperature of the aluminium or the heay of the paint-stripping gun, but I would guess so.
I hesitated before not mentioning an enamelling oven - not many people have one of those...
Problem there is that the wire is covered with felt or plasticene or whatever.
I have some LED lights on stems which are bendable, and which have been bent a LOT - the ~ 1mm silvery typical metal density (ie comparable to iron, copper etc) wire in them does not develop corners which soon break, unlike aluminium armature wire which is pure Al, fsvo pure, and supplied dead soft.
Peter F
Some sort of induction gadget? Dunno if you could get a device to work on aluminium.
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