[f-AA] An annealing washers howto

[Tom Phillips]

Annealing Copper & Aluminum Washers Or, making your oil-tight washers oil-tight again.            So you've dropped the oil from your engine / gear box / forks / bevel drive, and you realize you should have bought a new washer for the drain plug cause the old one looks a bit squashed. Will it seal again? Will you over-tighten (and strip!) the drain plug getting it to seal?Better to re-anneal the washer if you are going to re-use it.Why? - When you 'work' copper or Aluminum, it goes hard. Tightening an oil-drain plug against a washer 'works' the metal. 'Annealing' means 'making it soft so it deforms again'.Here's how....Grab 2 pairs of pointy-nose pliers. Wipe any oil/grit off the washer and take it into the kitchen. Erm, you do have a gas cooker, don't you ?(Alternatively, gas welding kit; blow torch; or some other source of safe flame. A cigarette lighter isn't enough heat, a hot air gun won't do it either. A gas cooker is the thing you want. A camping stove will do.) You need to get it hot enough, but obviously not melt it:Copper: which you recognize because it is copper-coloured.You need to get copper 'dull red'. Dull Red is one of those technical terms engineers use. It just means roast it until it glows a dull red. In order, as you heat metal, it goes:• slightly reddish tinge - this isn't hot enough to do anything • dull red • cherry red - properly 'red', but somewhere less than orange • orangey-yellow - way further than you need to go • white-hot - its about to melt, stop it. Aluminum: which is not copper-coloured, it is grey.Wipe washing up liquid on it. When you heat this, it boils, then burns to a black deposit. That's the heat at which its done. (Alternatively, you can cover it with soot from a sooty flame, then when this soot burns off, you are done. But Fairy Liquid is easier.)  So, using one pair of pointy-nose pliers, hold the washer in the flame until you get to the temperature you want. Then hold it by the other side, so you can heat the bit that was under the pliers. Heat it as evenly as you can, and for something as small as a washer, it can take as little as seconds, so pay attention it has been cooked all over, let it cool down naturally. You don't need to quench it in water or anything well. You want 2 pairs of pliers. ITS GOING TO BE HOT, so you don't want to touch it with your fingers. DO NOT let it touch exposed skin. DO NOT lay it on the kitchen table to cool down. And that's it, your washer is 're-annealed'. Brush off any sooty deposits, re fit it to the bike and it will form itself to a tight seal again. You can stand back and feel all smug and pleased with yourself :)
Tom CFJSS
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." Albert Einstein
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[vand...@aol.com]

Agree with all you wrote. + I cool the heated washer in motor oil collected from used plastic oil bottles. I drain the "empties" into a cut off bottom half of a bottle.  Obviously my time is not worth much, otherwise I'd be doing something more productive that spending 15-20 minutes saving the costs of $.20 copper washers. :)
Dan vdMeer

Annealing Copper & Aluminum Washers Or, making your oil-tight washers oil-tight again.  So you've dropped the oil from your engine / gear box / forks / bevel drive, and you realize you should have bought a new washer for the drain plug cause the old one looks a bit squashed. Will it seal again? Will you over-tighten (and strip!) the drain plug getting it to seal?Better to re-anneal the washer if you are going to re-use it.Why? - When you 'work' copper or Aluminum, it goes hard. Tightening an oil-drain plug against a washer 'works' the metal. 'Annealing' means 'making it soft so it deforms again'.Here's how....Grab 2 pairs of pointy-nose pliers. Wipe any oil/grit off the washer and take it into the kitchen. Erm, you do have a gas cooker, don't you?  (Alternatively, gas welding kit; blow torch; or some other source of safe flame. A cigarette lighter isn't enough heat, a hot air gun won't do it either. A gas cooker is the thing you want. A camping stove will do.) You need to get it hot enough, but obviously not melt it:Copper: which you recognize because it is copper-coloured.You need to get copper 'dull red'. Dull Red is one of those technical terms engineers use. It just means roast it until it glows a dull red. In order, as you heat metal, it goes:• slightly reddish tinge - this isn't hot enough to do anything • dull red • cherry red - properly 'red', but somewhere less than orange • orangey-yellow - way further than you need to go • white-hot - its about to melt, stop it. Aluminum: which is not copper-coloured, it is grey.Wipe washing up liquid on it. When you heat this, it boils, then burns to a black deposit. That's the heat at which its done. (Alternatively, you can cover it with soot from a sooty flame, then when this soot burns off, you are done. But Fairy Liquid is easier.)  So, using one pair of pointy-nose pliers, hold the washer in the flame until you get to the temperature you want. Then hold it by the other side, so you can heat the bit that was under the pliers. Heat it as evenly as you can, and for something as small as a washer, it can take as little as seconds, so pay attention it has been cooked all over, let it cool down naturally. You don't need to quench it in water or anything well. You want 2 pairs of pliers. ITS GOING TO BE HOT, so you20don't want to touch it with your fingers. DO NOT let it touch exposed skin. DO NOT lay it on the kitchen table to cool down. And that's it, your washer is 're-annealed'. Brush off any sooty deposits, re fit it to the bike and it will form itself to a tight seal again. You can stand back and feel all smug and pleased with yourself :)

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[Cy Galley]

Look in your aircraft Spruce Catalog.  Washers are now $.40 each or $.68 for a franklin.

 

P.S. I use water to quench as it boils off the scale leaving them bright and shiny.  Do them all at the same time by putting them on a loop of safety wire and heating with a little propane torch.

 

Cy Galley - Chair, Oshkosh Emergency Aircraft Repair
A service project of EAA Chapter 75 since 1963
www.eaa75.com  

 

 

[vand...@aol.com]

Hey Cy,
Thanks for the update on washer costs.  I'm going to ask myself for a 100% raise for washer annealing.  Let's see, that would bring my hourly rate up from $0.00 to, uh, $0.00?   Er, that doesn't make sense.  I know.  I'm going to buy a plane with 6 cylinders so I can do more washers and make more money.  And I am going to stop using that expensive oil that I would have tossed out with the bottle and change to water. :)

Seriously, I use the oil because my mentor said that it cools the metal at a different rate and that this difference in heat exchange returns the copper to a consistency that seals more securely.  Who knows?  I just accept some of these OF's biases as dogma when it seems to be too much trouble to find the engineering and scientific fact.
One fact I can bank on is the validity of your contribution to all of us on this list.  And I am grateful to you,
Dan vdMeer

[Cy Galley]

As I have been told, you can't cool copper from the red state fast enough to harden it at all unless you dump it into liquid nitrogen,   But even then the amount of hardening is infinitesimal.

 

As I said, I like the scale cleaning of the steam and no mess.  You might get some lubrication from the oil, but it is messy and I have great difficulty staying clean when working on anything.

 

Cy Galley - Chair, Oshkosh Emergency Aircraft Repair
A service project of EAA Chapter 75 since 1963
www.eaa75.com

----- Original Message -----

From: vand...@aol.com

To: aer...@westmont.edu

Sent: Friday, September 19, 2008 7:10 AM

Subject: Re: [f-AA] An annealing washers howto