annealing copper head gaskets

[BoschZEV]

it would have been more of an even heat throughout the work.

Because the thermal conductivity of Cu is so high, and the gasket is so thin, this isn't something to worry about at all. If it's red hot over some area under the torch flame on one side, it's red hot over essentially the same area on the opposite side.

Without calculating anything (which easily could be done) another way to think about it is that you can see a region of "red hotness" extending at least 1/2" from the center of the torch (i.e. a circle of diameter at least 1"). If the heat can cause red hotness 1/2" to the left and right of the torch, it certainly can cause red hotness 1/16" away in front of the torch, i.e. on the other side of the gasket.

Yet another way to think about this is the heat supplied by the torch really has no place to go other than into heating up the Cu. The heat transfers through the thin Cu gasket and then hits a brick wall of sorts, in that the air conducts the heat away much more slowly than the nearby torch is supplying it. That said, in addition to being conducted through the thin Cu gasket some of the heat also is conducted along it so the "cooling fin" action of having the entire Cu gasket to transfer heat to the air is why only a few sq. in. at a time is red hot.

[fciron]

My day job is "blacksmith". I make custom wrought ironwork and some other metal items, so we're getting into my field now.

I think the problem with the forge would be too much heat and the brightness of the fire would make it difficult to judge the temperature of the metal. The video I linked to shows the technique of putting a mark on the metal with a Sharpie which disappears when a certain temperature is reached, that would probably be the way to go with a forge. (Much like the flame wash color change, it is close enough to the annealing temp to get the job done...if you're really picky you can get Tempilstics from your welding supplier, but it's overkill in this case.)

You might be able to manage it on a gas stove, especially if you could get the flame ring to match up closely with the size of the gasket. I think it would be slow, but safer than the oxyacetylene. Given your .060 thickness I think I'd use my plumber's (acetylene-air) torch, it puts out enough heat for the job, but is less likely to melt things than the oxyacetylene torch.

[fillibuster]

fciron, thx for your comments, saw the video too. I have a burner somewhere, scrounged up at an auction, and I think I can make a "blue-light-special" out of it.
If it flunks the test I'll report back. ... we do learn from failure, don't we?
I don't think I'd try the weed burner, that's for the cast iron weld jobs. But it's easy to imagine a transition shape to the gasket's form, maybe 2" tall...... from a 6" ring... ?? If I make on that works I'll show it at D-port..... deal? .... it could always fry eggs.

Bosch, you too, thx for all your support. and one last question: The little outer edges that melted on me, they planed off with a file fairly easily, but could they have possibly been hardened beyond the rest of the material? I filed them down to just a little thinner than the rest of the gasket. And the engine's in the frame now, so we're running the work we done.

[rousseau]

The absolute simplest fool proof method is to lay it on the eye of an electric stove. Put it on high until it glows ,then turn it off and let it cool. Just like boiling water. The ONLY problem with this method is you must be single. WARNING Do NOT attempt this if you have a wife!!!!!

[BoschZEV]

The little outer edges that melted on me, they planed off with a file fairly easily, but could they have possibly been hardened beyond the rest of the material? I filed them down to just a little thinner than the rest of the gasket.

The Cu that melted at the edges would have formed large crystallites after it cooled so would be soft like the rest of the annealed gasket. It's possible some small amount of impurity compounds with oxygen, nitrogen, or carbon formed at the approx. 500 oF higher temperature required for melting, but the material didn't spend much time at that not-hugely-higher temperature so this wouldn't be much of a factor except for some additional surface scale.

[fillibuster]

The absolute simplest fool proof method is to lay it on the eye of an electric stove. Put it on high until it glows ,then turn it off and let it cool. Just like boiling water. The ONLY problem with this method is you must be single. WARNING Do NOT attempt this if you have a wife!!!!!

The "eye"??? do you mean the "burner"?? If so, I'm a sorry sack, for scrapping out the burners on my shop oven. Saved the rheostats, but .... oh well, scrap stoves are a dime a dozen around here.
Now, if so, rosseau (how bout a rhyme?), yes, that would be simple, and would take less effort to assemble than gas. Just couldn't fry eggs at d-port without some juice.
Wauseon's got juice!
I did get another set of coppers in the mail today, and they're pretty stiff. Spendy lab rats there. I don't know.
Bosch, thx again for your assurance.
I wouldn't have expected to string this out 5 pages. But we're still not finished. We have electricity on the farm.

[Yellow53Chief]

Hi,
When using copper head gaskets, don't expect them to work miracles. I have had them blow-out when using them on engines that have poor cylinder head to cylinder surface matching. I now lap my cylinder heads to the cylinder top surface and I have had zero head gasket failures - regardless of the type gasket used. To lap the head to the cylinder, I use valve grinding compound and though hand lapping can take an hour or more per cylinder, the results are superior. I lap until I get 95% perfect matching of the two surfaces - especially the area around each head bolt.

[T. Cotten]

Yellow53Chief!

I used a "Polish Mill", which is the side of a very large grinding stone (attached; beneath tabletop is a 42" Cincinatti Milicron, coarse 24" upon it).
With criss-cross swipes, it quickly levels cast iron, and the coarse one is dedicated to aluminum and lubed with WD-40.
Note that with composite gaskets, a mill profile is desireable to hold it.

This would probably be a heat barrier for copper however, so I would suggest reducing the mill profile on finer and finer abrasive discs stuck upon as thick of glass plate as possible (second attachment).
I have one piece of glass that I etched by ALOX blasting to hold Clover compounds, and have managed to grind two 17 1/2 lb. lapping discs to where they wring together such that one can be picked up with the other. I then used them to lap my scarred mill table and inspection plate.

Low tech rules.

....Cotten

[pansrule]

Annealing copper head gaskets

I don`t know for sure that I accomplished much, but I have annealed my thick copper head gaskets for my 48 Chief by putting them in the oven. I`m thinking I set the oven for 500 degrees, & left them in there for 10 or 15 minutes. It worked, I guess because I didn`t have any problem, and I put a LOT of miles on it!!! The ol`lady wasn`t too happy about the smell, but it worked, so it was worth that bit of a setback! Ross

[46CHF]

Now that’s funny

[kitabel]

An idea that I've seen in older pictures (Kohler flathead, no data): using a small carbide ball end cutter, trace a thin shallow ditch mid-way between the gasket inner & outer lines. Bolt torque will extrude copper into the groove.
Interesting idea, I don't know if I'm that brave.

[TomL]

Clamp a steel welding rod in the vice, slide the gaskets on the rod , light up your Bernz-o-Matic torch, heat until they have all kinds of purples/greens/blue color swirling in the gasket, time will vary according to size and thickness, but its only a matter of seconds until that happens, let them cool, re-install on motor, go riding/racing, have fun! Pretty scientific wouldn't you agree!

[T. Cotten]

We all agree copper conducts, right Folks?

And that heat travels to where it isn't, right?

The head is a hundred degrees hotter than the cylinder walls.

Or at least you hope so.

....Cotten

[Steve Slocombe]

Going back several posts to VLs on the Cannonball Run, I think head gasket failures were due to using those blue Teflon ones.