[TheForge] Annealing Aluminum

[David E. Smucker]

John, I hate to throw cold water on you idea of using a IR to measure the
temperature of aluminum but they don't work worth SH#T for measuring
aluminum.  They are great for dark or black metal such as steel but god
didn't intend for man to measure the temperature of a shinny surface like
aluminum with IR.  (Works fine if you paint the metal black).  Alcoa spent
millions over many years working to develop a good and reliable IR -- non
contacting temperature measure for aluminum.  They would be very useful in
hot rolling of aluminum.  They even tried 2 wave length units but never came
up with anything that could hold standards across a wide range of alloys and
surface condition.  Sure you could get to 10 to 20 percent accurate but not
anywhere the accuracy you could get on steel or black surfaces.

For big chucks of metal (hot rolling, forging and extrusions) we mostly used
two point contact measurement.

For the blacksmith the good old pine stick works well.

Dave Smucker
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "JOHN CHOBRDA" <jchob at verizon.net>
To: <munlaw2 at hcsmail.com>; "'Sponsored by ABANA'" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 10:38 AM
Subject: RE: [TheForge] Annealing Aluminum


> Craig:
> Or if you want to be more accurate, Granger Supply sells an IR
> thermometer with a laser pointer for about $100.00 (it's guaranteed for as
> long as you own it). It's accurate to within 2%, and I love mine, instead
of
> carrying around 6 or 7 different temple sticks I just point, press the
> button, and I know the exact temperature.
>
> John C.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Ron Childers
> Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 6:57 AM
> To: 'Sponsored by ABANA'
> Subject: RE: [TheForge] Annealing Aluminum
>
> Use a Temple stick.
>
> Ron C
>
>
> On Wednesday, July 28, 2004, at 10:07 PM, Craig Schaefer wrote:
>
> > I need to anneal some small pieces of aluminum plate.   1/8 to 3/16
> > thickness.  I do not know the alloy.  I have oxy/acetylene at my
> > disposal.
> > I know that heating to 650F and air cooling is a good rule of thumb,
> > but how do I approximate 650F with the torch?
> >
> > CraigS
> > Gresham, OR
> >
> >>
> >
> >
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