How to anneal stainless steel

[rtparso]

I am making some pens out of stainless steel tube. Not much skill involved put I have lots of friend that work SS and they will like them. The problem I am having is that the tubing is very hard and takes forever to polish. I was talking to a friend about this and he reminded me that the tubing is cold drawn and therefore "work hardened". So I need to anneal the tubes. I have done this with brass and steel but not with SS. Can anyone point me to a color guide for the recommended heat (as in heat to red hot allow to cool to yellow and quench) because I don’t have any heat indicators.

 

[btboone]

Ron, just going red hot and air cooling would probably do it. How are you trying to polish now? A harder surface keeps a polish better, so maybe changing the polishing method might be best. The first trick is getting out any machining marks or sanding lines before trying to polish. This can be done with something like 320 grit or 400 grit sandpaper wet with WD-40 while it spins in a lathe. Try to move sideways a lot to go perpendicular to any lines that are there. You can progress to finer grits from there. Then and only then, you can polish the remaining metal to mirror finish by using a polishing compound made for stainless steel. These have a harder grit than those used on gold or other metals. I can get pretty close with a Dremel tool and a 1/2" cotton buff and waxy white compound made for stainless. I then do a final whammy with a big cotton wheel to blend out any swirl marks that the small buffs leave. The important thing is that you need to take off all the high spots on the surface before proceeding to a better polish. You'll need to "ruin" the surface with sandpaper in order to go to a better finish.