Anybody has idea who can supply a 2000 degree C annealer to process 0.002" (0.05 mm) diameter tungsten wire?

I thought the recrystallation temperature of tungsten was between 1300C and 1500C.

I would suggest you contact EBNER at www.ebner.cc/ and see if will either manufacture one for you or refer you to some specialty company that does make this kind of machine. This is not an in-line electric resistance annealer.

EBNER is a world famous manufacturer of heat treatment equipment for copper, copper-zinc alloys, nickel-silver alloys, etc. and they have many decades of experience. They manufacture continuous furnaces, batch-type furnaces and strand annealers plus they incorporate cutting-edge technology in their designs to optimize both the equipment performance and the annealing results.

EBNER Industrieofenbau Gesellschaft m.b.H.
Ruflinger Straße 111
A 4060 Leonding
Austria

Kindest regards,
Peter J. Stewart-Hay
Principal
Stewart-Hay Associates
www.Stewart-Hay.com

Peter,
When using a continuous process ie, the wire is passing through the annealer then it becomes a time and temperature deal. the faster you move the wire, the more temperature you will need in order for the wire to have sufficeint time at the annealing temperature.

the atmosphere in the annealer may be (UP TO ) 2000C but the wire enters at room temp and the speed of the wire keeps it from getting too hot or reaching recrystallation temperature. If the wire does get too hot you can speed it up or reduce the temp.


In the carpet industry they used to have 300 foot long ovens that they operated at about 250F because they did not want to overheat the nylon fibers, etc. Now they operate at higher temperatures and the ovens are much shorter, but the material does not overheat.

Its not how hot it is but how long the material is exposed to that temp.

Thank you for the information Spectre

I was already aware of this. (Excluding the carpet process of course.) I was focussed on a batch annealing application because the metal in question is tungsten.

I was employed by a multi-national wire and cable company for some 2 1/2 decades and once I had a maintenance machinist working with me who came from Hungay. He previously had worked in a vacuum tube and light bulb plant over there and I heard many stories of how difficult drawing tungsten can be, especially if a bit impure. In fact, their source of supply of tungsten was Britain because no business in the communist world at that time could produce sufficiently pure tungsten for their drawing process. Annealing was always a batch process.

Kindest regards,
Peter J. Stewart-Hay
Principal
Stewart-Hay Associates
www.Stewart-Hay.com

Peter,

Obviously most of my experience is in non ferrous with 00.0% being copper and the rest aluminum.

When I made the comment I wondered if it was possible to anneal tungsten in a tube annealer or could it only be done in a batch. I know we pushed the envelop to quicken the cycle but that was only to reach the soak temp.

You are right about the impurity in metals behind the iron curtain. About 5 years ago We tested some iron-chrome nickel ribbon that was used in catalysts and spectro analysis indicated that the % gold content in the metal ribbon was higher than most gold miners find in high grade ore. So much for the quality of the metal.

anyway it good to see some activity in the forums.

Richard

Hi Guys! Thanks for the information. I need help finding a small furnace that will anneal 3% Rhenium Tungsten wire. It has to be compact (1' by 2' approx) and able to reach a temperature of 2000 degrees C. We currently use a mercury contact and pass an electrical current through the wire to heat it, which is not ecofriendly process. We are runing 25 meters per min. We have tried an inductive furnace but without success. I will contact EBNER. Thanks!!