Aside from being a hobby or arts and crafts technique, metal treatment is an industrial practice related to the science of metallurgy.

With a very long history spanning nearly all cultures and civilisations, metal treatment has developed into a highly sophisticated industry with many specialist areas ranging from the creation of metal alloys to the technical metal working machinery.

Engineering Metal Treatments

In terms of engineering the properties of a metal determine its likely usage, some metals are ideal for different structural aspects depending upon their ability to resist deformation or shearing and their strength per unit of mass.

Alloys developed through metallurgy have been able to bridge the gap between the varying metal treatments, creating metals with enhanced properties combing the best from of two or more metals.

Although it must be taken into consideration that although a metal may have many positive properties they may also be subject to other less useful properties such as sudden stress failures or micro fractures caused by improper placement of loads.

For this reason metals are frequently put through long intensive metal stress analysis which can often take many weeks and will test for weaknesses in metals and alloys by putting them under extreme conditions.

Metal Treatment Techniques

The ability to manipulate materials that are as varied, strong and resilient as metals has been very important in making them as versatile as they are, as evidenced by their wide spread usage in nearly every everyday item from buildings to cutlery.

Frequently used in high rise buildings and bridge construction, cars, pipes, electric cables, jewellery, trains, household appliances, kids toys and planes to name but a few.

Many metal treatment techniques used by hobbyist to manipulate metal alloys have their industrial counterparts. These are of course (usually) on a much larger scale and often concern far greater masses of material in which case the machinery and techniques have to be modified.

Techniques for the manipulation of metal alloys include the following.

• Milling metal is the shaping of metal by removing unnecessary material in order to facilitate to formation of its final shape.
• Turning metal tools are used to produced a shape with rotational symmetry the metal is placed in a machine tool called a lathe the metal is rotated quickly and other tools are then used to cut away any unnecessary alloys to form the final shape.
• Pressing metal machines involves using machine presses to apply pressure to sheets of metal alloys around moulds. A good knowledge of the material is necessary to make sure it is suitable for this kind of manipulation.
• Metal heat treatment can be used on metals and alloys which respond favourably to exposure to heat subtly altering their molecular composition which alters their properties, usually aimed at significantly increasing its strength.