Annealing - what it is and why we do it!
Watch the video to learn why annealing is so important in jewellery making - and how to do it!
About the Tutorial
Annealing is sometimes one of the parts of jewellery making that is glossed over. You will frequently find jewellery tutorials telling you that you need to anneal your metal, but they don't always tell you why or how to do it!
Annealing is a heat treatment, carried out in jewellery making with a blowtorch normally or in a kiln on a larger scale. Everything that we do to our metal work hardens it until eventually we can't work it any more - annealing softens the metal again so that we can continue making beautiful rings, bangles and more. Annealing is also essential to get the best results from a rolling mill texture.
This tutorial will teach you everything that you need to know about annealing and how to do it successfully!
This video class is just one in a growing collection of free tutorials. You can enrol on each one individually or enrol on the whole bundle so that you don't miss out on new classes!
Tools and Materials
To anneal your metal you will need:
* copper or silver sheet - wire also needs to be annealed as you work with it, but it's easiest to try on sheet the first few times so that you can more easily see what is happening.
* blow torch, soldering block, reverse-action tweezers, brass tweezers, quench pot, pickle pot, black sharpie, safety glasses
Course Curriculum
Joanne Tinley
Tutor and Founder of The Jeweller's Bench
The Jeweller's Bench is run by Joanne Tinley. She has been making her own jewellery for as long as she can remember and left her first career as a school teacher to set up business as a jewellery designer and tutor 15 years ago. She is self-taught and like many people started with wire and beads. Learning how to solder, however, opened up a whole new world of jewellery making, one that she is keen to share!