Caution when using the charcoal barbeque method below:
You MUST watch it as the heat can become too high. I
know with the price of annealed wire out here that I
get 3 times as much if I buy the electrical grade
instead of the bonsai grade.

Kitsune Miko

--- dalecochoy wrote:
I certainly recommend getting your annealed copper
wire from Julian Adams.
Excellent stuff at great prices that make it not
worth doing yourself, but,
if you must.....
see below

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kitsune Miko"
Subject: [IBC] Fwd: [IBC] Copper Wire


You can buy bare copper wire at places like Home
Depot
and detemper it yourself. Copper does not need
to
be
heated too high in temp to achieve this. My son
the
metal worker says to put it on the driveway and
heat
with a torch until it starts getting red.

No, don't do this. It takes forever and you can't
get it even. Some places
annealed, some not and some melted!
Do it in your barbecue, at night, so you can see the
color as it heats.

You can
let
it cool or you can quench. The jeweler friend
says
quench the son says not necessary.

When I did my own I always quenched it. Had nothing
to do with hardening,
tempering, etc, but it cleans the wire instantly
when it hits the water so
you don't get black crud all over you when handling.
Use tongs to drop in a
bucket and a quick "phsst!" and the dirt is gone!


(quencing is
quick
cooling in water. I thnk it would excite the
wire
too
much, excited copper wire gets hard quickly (did
I
really say THAT?))

No, this does not effect copper wire. It is not
like heating and quenching
steel for tempering. It won't effect it, but it will
be clean and still
annealed.


I find
the wire work hardens as I apply it to the tree.
Not
easy to change once it is on.

That is the point of using it!

Regards,
Dale




=====
"I was born with a birth defect-- no herd instinct."
Brenda Ueland

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