Fine wire made to your specification

Annealing is a thermal treatment that is performed to reduce stress or hardness, facilitate cold working, produce a desired microstructure or obtain desired mechanical, physical or other properties.  Typically, annealing involves heating and maintaining a specific temperature or temperature range for some period of time.  The effect on material properties is time-temperature dependent.

At an elevated temperature, the surface of a metal will react with the surrounding environment.  For this reason, special atmospheres must be utilized to insure the integrity of the metal surface and to avoid unwanted reactions.  The type of atmosphere that must be used varies with the type of metal, the processing temperature and the processing objectives.  To produce “bright” stainless steel wire, a strongly reducing atmosphere of hydrogen is required.  However, if one wishes to produce “black oxide annealed” product, one would need an oxidizing atmosphere of air or oxygen.

Controlled and monitored processes are established for the use of specialized atmospheres, such as:

• Hydrogen
• Argon
• Oxygen

Specialized atmospheres are available for strand, batch, and vacuum annealing and "special heat treating" processes. All processes are available in continuous "reel to reel", or in batch mode for processing of pieces or wire on spools. Special processing, such as oxide coating is also available.

The physical properties of each spool of wire is tested at the start and end of each spool before and after annealing.  This testing for accuracy of the "annealing" is an integral part of the process to insure quality and consistency.

Annealing and Heat Treating
All bright annealing is done in Hydrogen or Argon atmosphere using tube furnaces and a “reel to reel” process.  Several single and multi-tube furnaces with different length hot zones, temperature capability and capacity are available to process any of the materials and sizes that California Fine Wire offers.  The maximum temperature capability of these tube furnaces ranges from 1800 oF to 2000 oF.  Oxide (blue or black) annealing can be performed on request in a reel-to-reel process. 

A small batch furnace is utilized for batch annealing, heat treating and aging processes.  Wire that is batch processed is wound on metal spools (i.e. Tantalum) with similar expansion coefficients to insure wire quality and integrity.

Vacuum annealing is available on request.