Hardening Copper ?

[Salkehatchie]

So, what is the best way to harden copper?  Put some spring into it, so to speak.

Thank you in advance!

[Robert Wolfe]

Hammering it should work harden it to some degree.
 

[Carl Young]

Adding tin and phosphorus to copper will create an alloy, phosphor bronze.
Regards,
Carl

[Goo]

I dont think you will get much more hardness out of copper than you find with rigid plumbing pipe. If you can work the plumbing pipe into what you want without heating it that should give you some success.    Rio Grande jewelry supply had red bronze sheet in the past that will work harden.    There is also a process called heat hardening used in jewelry making you will need to websearch using the terms heat hardening to find out more.

[Hungry Horse]

I have work hardened copper ramrod pipes by just hammering them with a rawhide mallet. This is a silversmithing trick that worked fine on ramrod pipes.

Hungry Horse

[Joey R]

Work hardening or planishing. A perfect place to witness this method is Bucyrus Kettle Works in Bucyrus Ohio where hand made copper kettles are made.

[yulzari]

To give you some encouragement. Ancient Egyptian stonemasons used copper chisels. Excavations have shown that they had specialist copper hardeners to whom worn chisels were sent to be heated to soften, then hammered to reshape them and work harden the new tips. Probably several times each working day so a mason probably had several chisels to keep one to hand through the working day. The moral is that copper can be usefully work hardened.

As to whether it will perform the task you would have it do is another matter.

[davec2]

Yulzari,

The other aspect of the hardening routine for the Egyptians was the fact that the copper was not pure.  The smelted copper often contained iron and manganese.  Had they been able to smelt pure copper from their ore, it would have been much more difficult for them to harden copper chisels.  It was just serendipitous that they needed harder copper and that they couldn't get the copper pure enough to be too soft.