Heat Treatment

Heating and cooling a solid metal or alloy in such a way as to obtain desired conditions or properties. Heating for the sole purpose of hot working is excluded from the meaning of this definition.

Colour Method

A technique of heat treating metal by observing the colour changes that occur to determine the proper operation to perform to achieve the desired results.

See also: Ageing, Annealing, Black Annealing, Blacksmithing, Box Annealing, Case Hardening, Colour Temperature, Firing, Flame Annealing, Hardenability, Hardening, Normalizing, Temper.