Ya know,, some stuff "anneals" differently than ya'd think,, If you go pounding on copper, it gets hard and brittle, to soften it up, heat it and quench it,, If ya let it slowly cool, it stays hard. Ive never tried aluminum,, Once annealed, how is it UN annealed?
I got instructions from a columnist in a Homesteading magazine, ( mita been Grit) on how to temper metal to make a good punch or chisel. Its not SUPPosed to be so hard as to be brittle to the point of risking it chipping and sending tiny bits flying, but hard enough to cut into something like a black pipe dutchman busted off in a fitting.. It requires a product sold by a multilevel marketing bunch,, Its on a piece of cardboard taped to the wall in the shop.. And IF you ever need to heat metal to a target temperature and youve no way to gauge the temp of the metal, go to a welding supply house. They have "crayons" that change color at certain temps. Theyre spensive, BUT,, IF thats what ya need,, Like if youre wanting to weld cast irone, ya gotta have rods that contain Nickel and ya gotta pre-heat the area to a set range,, I was gonna TRY to save a vise,, It cost $26.00,, The rods and the crayon cost $20.00,, so, I bought a new one..
You have a rose-bud tip for the torch? You use acetylene or propane? I use propane,, its a little slower BUT Ohh BOY is it cheaper.. Takes a different cutting tip.. The brazing tips work okay,, but I wonder if theyd be easier to work with if they had acetylene.. But, a bottle of O2 mite last me a year, so,, Im not gonna spend the $$$ to find out, I dont do enough cutting and brazing usually for it to matter. I have a Smith medium sized torch and a small OHHH, dang,, its the most common maker,, senior moment,, sorry, torch.. I got a rosebud because I bent a wheel up REAL bad on the backhoe, I was running from a fire. I WAS fighting the fire, rolled over a Burned to a point stump, ruined the tire and hadda get away, so, the rim was bent all to crap.. IIRC I went thru 2 bottles of O2 in 4 days as I heated and beat it back to functionality.. Its tubeless and holds air just fine,, Beating on it was like hammering on a huge bell.. No dogs would get close.. I poked wires in the ground for gauges,, and used my experienced eyeballs,, Youd never know by looking what a disaster it was.. I TRIED to find a wheel,, but after 2 or 3 days of calling junk yards I gave up and just fixed the dang thing..