Hi All,
I’m looking to build an annealing furnace for copper, I know, the copper guy invading an Iron forum, but the copper guys don’t have a forum…
First of all I do this professionally; I make custom copper products, bronze, brass and such. I’m looking to make an annealing furnace for copper, primarily bar stock .25 x .75, ¾” and 1” pipe. The length is the killer; bar stock is typically 36” long. I’ve been doing it on the BBQ, but I’m looking to get away from that, has some down sides.
So, copper anneals and about 800-1000F so it’s fairly cool, so I was considering using 2 pieces of stove pipe maybe 10” ID 12” OD 48” long, fill the gap with perlite, pretty straight forward. I am considering building it VERTICAL and putting an 8” stove burner on the bottom with an Amazon temp controller. 8" burner runs a little over 2000 watts, a little over 6000BTU and they are only $15 with free delivery 4.5 stars too. The temp controller is about $40, and I've used those before, fairly easy. and have to put a mesh type material on the bottom so the copper doesn't rest on the element.
I’ll have to make some steel stands to make best use of the vertical space, maybe some shelves, or something of that nature. But overall, vertical saves a ton of floor space. Maybe I’ll base the entire design on a harbor freight dolly!
Might even be able to control the atmosphere better, add argon or something to reduce the oxidation.
So does anyone have any reason it won’t work, or maybe some ideas to go along the way.
Thanks in Advance
Aaron
BTW, I tried to attach a few burnt copper/BBQ pics but it didn't like it. So if someone knows the trick let me know, prove with photographic evidence you CAN anneal copper on a BBQ. Covering it in aluminum foil it the key to success!