I need some help with annealing aluminium, the only kind I can get is all ready hardened by the rolling process.
I have been working and forming steel, brass and copper for a long time but never Aluminium.
Now how hot do I have to get my Alminium sheets to soften them?
Should I cool them slow like brass or fast like copper to get it good and soft?
I am trying to alter my V6 intake and the store bought Al is not going to want to form to any thing unless I soften it.
I would like to beable to push it into a form and not have it pop back to its orignal flatness with some added dents.

 

i'd say get a metallurgy book and read up on how aluminum is made and hardened. it's a lot differant then steel, brass, or copper. not sure what you're wanting to do but if it were me i'd consider weld build up in the places you need more material.

 

Do you know which alloy the metal is? 6061 T6 can be annealed, but then it drops to T4 I believe.... You pretty much need to know what alloy it is first though, aluminums pretty tricky.

 

Knowing what it is will be the hard part because I there arn't any markings on the package telling what it is.
I don't think it is heat treated, I have had peaces of heat treated air craft Al and it is all most as hard as steel. These are nothing like that.
They are store bought (like from a wal-mart).

 

Here's a link with some good info on how to properly anneal aluminum of different types:

http://www.tinmantech.com/html/alumi...continued.html