Floor word for work that keeps a shiny, as-machined finish through heat treating, achieved in vacuum, dry hydrogen, dissociated ammonia or well-controlled nitrogen-based atmospheres with very low dew points. Bright annealing and bright hardening let parts skip blasting or pickling. Straw or blue tint on parts that should be bright means oxygen or moisture is getting into the furnace.
Stainless tubes have to come out bright, if they're straw colored the hydrogen's wet.
Also heard as
- bright annealed
- bright hardened
- bright and clean
Related terms
Vacuum furnace
A sealed, pumped-down furnace that heats parts with no atmosphere, then quenches with pressurized gas or oil.
Dew point
The temperature at which water vapor in a furnace atmosphere condenses, used as a gauge of carbon potential.
Scale
The oxide crust that forms on steel heated in air or in an oxidizing atmosphere.
Temper colors
Thin oxide colors, from pale straw to blue, that form on clean steel as it is heated in air.