Jewelry Projects: learning how to anneal metal

Annealing metal restores malleability to a metal that has been work hardened. This reduces stress on the metal and lets you form it to make your jewelry.

When annealed, the crystalline structure of metal is “loose”, having spaces in between the crystal arrangement that facilitate malleability.

You can anneal metal using your torch.

Place the metal on a soldering charcoal or soldering pad, heat it with the torch. Move the torch all over the area of the metal and watch the heat colors change, best seen in a dimly lit area.

Heat sterling silver and 14K gold to a dull red, let it cool for some seconds and quench the metal en water as soon as the redness disappears.

Then put it in your pickle bath to remove any oxides.

Annealing tips:

• always keep moving the torch,
• pay attention to the color changes, they tell you what’s going on with the metal,
• when you’re annealing soldered rings don’t anneal them too much or else the solder may start flowing again (especially beginning jewelry making when you use soft solder).

Having annealed the metal you’re ready to start the next part which is shaping the metal to make a ring, click here.

Back to sawing sheet metal.

References used: Untracht (1985); McCreight (2004).

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