Hardening Brass?

I have a piece of sheet brass that I wanted to bend and create cylinder lagging but I found it didn't want to retain its shape and wanted to 'spring open'

I annealed it and found it bent a treat - and stayed there, is there a way of now hardening it, now it's bent and to shape?

Alan

Brass does work harden so bending it to shape will harden it to a certain extent. You will not be able to harden it by heat treatment.

Another way of hardening it is planishing (otherwise known as beating it to death with a hammer!) but I doubt you will want to do that.

Russell

brass will harden on its own over time, annealing allows you to shape and easily cut the brass but later it will return to a more harder state.

There is to my knowledge no known method of hardening brass though I am sure someone will come up with a method.

brass and copper will withstand use better in an annealed state and as it returns to a hard condition it will crack, I have seen evidence of pipes that subject to vibration that have cracked. It is a part of service to remove copper or brass pipes on working machines and anneal them.

Phosphor Bronze can be hardened to a degree by heating and quenching.

In the past copper pipes were used to transfer fuel on IC and CI engines and the vibration would harden the pipes. Failures could mean fuel under high pressure spraying all over.

That is why fuel pipes were made in a loop and not straight!

Nowadays plastic piping is used on low pressure and steel on high pressure.

Brake piping comes to mind and fuel return pipes on diesels.

Clive

Thanks for your tips, never knew it got harder with age - perhaps it will be back to where it was by the morning!

It has obviously hardened up a bit during the bending but still seems quite soft, perhaps I 'over annealed' it

Alan

I was sceptical whwn a recent article in ME said that brass would work harden. Having done a lot of work on sheet brass over the past few weeks, I can say that, at least the grade I have*, hardens considerably overnight.

Neil

*I don't know what grade as I got it from work as leftovers from some strange project.

Well, having left it overnight to harden (full of hope) I found it so hard today I couldn't drill it!

Only joking! Very soft and had to be very carefull working it for fear of damage, but my cylinder cladding is now made and fitted - and now I know a little bit about annealing brass!

Alan