drying brass on top of wood stove, accidental heat treat

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whiteinterceptor

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last night I deprimed and washed some 45LC brass with dawn soap and small amount of Lemi shine, rinsed it well, put it on top of the wood stove in a wire mesh basket to dry for a couple minutes and ended up forgetting about the brass for 45 minutes. oops... half of the brass has a case coloured hardened look to it now and the rest look perfect. Did I just anneal the brass or over cook it and is it still usable now? I don't care about the look just wondering if I ruined the case coloured look brass. edit.. added info.. just to be clear... I won't be using the brass , was just wondering if that ruined the brass, I don't know anything about annealing and I do value my eyes and guns so won't be using them.
 
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whiteinterceptor said:
last night I deprimed and washed some 45LC brass with dawn soap and small amount of Lemi shine, rinsed it well, put it on top of the wood stove in a wire mesh basket to dry for a couple minutes and ended up forgetting about the brass for 45 minutes. oops... half of the brass has a case coloured hardened look to it now and the rest look perfect. Did I just anneal the brass or over cook it and is it still usable now? I don't care about the look just wondering if I ruined the case coloured look brass.
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No, your fine... I've done this plenty of times. The temperature of the stove isn't hot enough to anneal the brass.
 
whiteinterceptor said:
last night I deprimed and washed some 45LC brass with dawn soap and small amount of Lemi shine, rinsed it well, put it on top of the wood stove in a wire mesh basket to dry for a couple minutes and ended up forgetting about the brass for 45 minutes. oops... half of the brass has a case coloured hardened look to it now and the rest look perfect. Did I just anneal the brass or over cook it and is it still usable now? I don't care about the look just wondering if I ruined the case coloured look brass.
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I'm not convinced that they are fine. I'm sure you can cook on top of your specific stove? Could be over 4-500F?
 
Lead hammer said:
I'm not convinced that they are fine. I'm sure you can cook on top of your specific stove? Could be over 4-500F?
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I just checked the top of our wood burning stove with an infrared thermometer and it was reading 485 Fahrenheit at a moderate burn. (300 F flue temp)

That may be hot enough to soften your brass too much if left there for a while. Are you willing to endanger your eyesight for a few dollars worth of brass?
 
Between 425°C and 650°C for annealing brass, I think you are good to use it. 459F is 273C. The temp stick is 600C that I anneal with.
 
tigrr said:
Between 425°C and 650°C for annealing brass, I think you are good to use it. 459F is 273C. The temp stick is 600C that I anneal with.
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Annealing is also time dependant. A lower temperature for a longer interval - and 45 minutes is defiantly longer than 8-10 seconds - will also soften the entire case not just the neck.

Like I said eyesight is a wonderful thing to possess.
 
whiteinterceptor said:
...put it on top of the wood stove in a wire mesh basket to dry for a couple minutes and ended up forgetting about the brass for 45 minutes. oops...
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This is a judgement that only you are in a position to make. "On the wood stove" means next to nothing by itself, as wood stoves can simmer along at not much more than bath temperatures, or they can glow red hot. You have to think on how hot was the stove while the brass was there.

My thought is the brass is fine unless you were running the stove very hot. Like, "don't spill any water on it or it might crack the stovetop" kind of hot.
 
When I anneal my brass, I test the body of the brass midway down with a 450 temp stik. It never makes it way any lower. At that 450 zone, I have no discolouration of the brass.
 
^^^^NOT^^^^ if the case was annealed into the web and case head area your screwed NO amount of annealing will bring the brass back. Brass is cheap, eyes and firearms are not
 
I have a few thousand 9mm brass in the mix this happened to. Looks kinda darker, maybe some green and blue hues?
Never seen one crack. Have seen lots of other cracked cases, especially Winchester's.
 
6.5 shooter said:
^^^^NOT^^^^ if the case was annealed into the web and case head area your screwed NO amount of annealing will bring the brass back. Brass is cheap, eyes and firearms are not
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I'd agree. IF the brass has been softened where it shouldn't be soft, there's no coming back from that. It's the IF that's the problem. I doubt that it is, but I don't know that for sure. What caused the colour change? Heat will do it, or is it a chemical reaction? That's the unknown.

I don't know exactly what temperature it takes to discolour brand "X" brass, I'm not a metallurgist. I doubt anyone else here is either.

I've been tempted to use the top of the woodstove to dry wet brass in the winter months, but I don't know what the temperature actually is. If it was an old fashioned wood burning range with an oven thermometer I'd probably use that with some degree of confidence.

Like most of us have said, you have to consider what it's worth to you, and decide based on that.

Personally, I'd be p***ed at myself, but I'd toss them in the scrap bucket and call it a day.

I've only got one set of eyes and fingers and I don't like hospitals. Unknown quantities are a bad thing when it comes to loading ammo, at least in my opinion.
 
Chilly807 said:
I don't know exactly what temperature it takes to discolour brand "X" brass, I'm not a metallurgist. I doubt anyone else here is either.
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There is no exact temperature, because there are too many variables. Heat tint on metals is an accumulation of reaction products, most commonly oxides of the constituent metals. Colour varies depending on thickness and crystallographic properties of the oxides, which in turn vary with things like how long has the oxide been there, and how much moisture, oxygen and other reactants were available while they were forming. Brass that was thoroughly cleaned an hour ago will develop heat tint very differently from brass that has been exposed to warm, humid air for two weeks.

Regardless of the above, heat tint requires quite high temperatures to form under any circumstances, temperatures beyond what a wood stove would normally run at unless you were intentionally pushing it for some reason. Thus I doubt that the colours on his brass are heat tint. Most likely it is a soap film from the detergent, or a corrosion product from the citric acid (lemishine) in air.

As to your doubts, I assure you they are baseless.
 
BattleRife said:
There is no exact temperature, because there are too many variables. Heat tint on metals is an accumulation of reaction products, most commonly oxides of the constituent metals. Colour varies depending on thickness and crystallographic properties of the oxides, which in turn vary with things like how long has the oxide been there, and how much moisture, oxygen and other reactants were available while they were forming. Brass that was thoroughly cleaned an hour ago will develop heat tint very differently from brass that has been exposed to warm, humid air for two weeks.

Regardless of the above, heat tint requires quite high temperatures to form under any circumstances, temperatures beyond what a wood stove would normally run at unless you were intentionally pushing it for some reason. Thus I doubt that the colours on his brass are heat tint. Most likely it is a soap film from the detergent, or a corrosion product from the citric acid (lemishine) in air.

As to your doubts, I assure you they are baseless.
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This is what I also believe. Well said. I know mine never got over 300f but still look "case hardened". And you explain why perfectly.


I also notice if I use a tumble solution with too high acid content, it will promote the darker case hardened look. Food for thought to anyone reading along.
 
can you post pictures?

I have had some discolouration in the past and that was just from drying on a rack at low temps, above the hot air floor register.
 
I would fire up the stove, put the same pan and some brass back on it, time it and test the temp of the brass. If it gets to 500F for 1 hr, probably not good.
 
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