Straightening Brass Trigger Guard

[Desert Ratxx]

What is the best way to straighten a brass wax cast trigger guard? Building a kit and the guard is off a little bit, not much but more than a little tweak. Will heating it up affect it or is there a better way.

Thanks

 

Rat,

You need to anneal it which is different than annealing steel. Heat it up to red, then quench in water, then bend it. If you bend it several times. It will work harden and will need to be annealed again.

Sean

 

[Zonie]

Because you said that the trigger guard is "a brass wax cast" part, it may not be brass at all.
Many of the wax castings (investment casting) are made of bronze and (speaking from a personal experience), they do not like to be bent without breaking.

The best way to tell if the part is brass or bronze that I can think of short of a true chemical analysis is to use a file on some area that will be hidden when the part is installed.

A new flat file will cut brass with little pressure. You will be able to feel the resistance to the cutting action.
A new flat file will also cut bronze but it often takes more pressure to get it to cut and the file will feel like it is cutting something that is slippery. I wish I could give a better description of it but that's the way if feels to me.

I heated the last investment cast bronze trigger guard I tried to bend to a red heat and then water quenched it like I would do to anneal a brass part.
When I tried to bend it it flexed some and then went "Snap", so I ordered another one.

I said to myself "well, that didn't work so I'll try the other approach to annealing it.

I heated the next one to a bright red and then very slowly moved the torch away from it so that it slowly cooled. When I tried to bend it it bent like hard butter!

Based on this experience, I would suggest that you prepair yourself by buying a spare triggerguard. (You never know when you'll need one. :grin: )

zonie

 

[LFC]

Snapped one myself some years back. I think I tried heating it with a propane torch, but obviously not enough. Good luck!

 

[Desert Ratxx]

Thanks for the info. As always a wealth of knowledge and expeirence, the best part of all a great bunch of guys who aren't shy about sharing it. :hatsoff:

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you can find a way to keep the brass at a white hot color while working on it( A very Big IF)you can bend it or straighten it slowly with small hits, and not risk breaking it. If you can't keep it at heat, then you need to anneal it by heating it up white hot, and then dousing it in water. Brass does work harden, so every time you strike it, it is getting harder and more brittle. Take it slowly, and anneal often. Don't try to straighten a trigger guard out with one blow. That is the big mistake people make.

 

[Zonie]

Paul: I'm afraid I have to disagree with you about heating a brass part to a "white hot" color.

Brass and Bronze both melt at 1640-2040 degrees F depending on the alloy.
A metal heated to 1600 degrees F will be a bright red and when heated to 2000 degrees it will be a bright lemon yellow color.
Metal heated to 2300 degrees F will be white hot but by then, if the metal is a copper alloy, it will be melted.
zonie

 

[paulvallandigham]

Okay: Thanks for the correction. I see that bright lemon as " white ". All I know is that you can work brass at very high temperatures, just short of melting point, if you take it easy. The real problem is those IFs I wrote about. An old guy who had learned smithing from his grandfather told me that you wait until the sparks begin to fly, indicating you are melting and burning the metal( I think he was talking about carbon steel when he mentioned the sparks, but he did not differentiate when he was talking to me) and you could bend anything, from steel to aluminum. He was the kind of guy who fixed everything and anything, and threw nothing away. He was very popular during the Great Depression and World War II when buying any kind of consumer good was next to impossible, and people looked for guys like him to repair what they had. He didn't know anything about electricity or wiring, but he repaired all kinds of appliances, even brazing cast iron !