"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...


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..

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?

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.


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.

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