Understanding Metal Temper: What 'Dead Soft Silver' Really Means

When you’re looking into buying silver, copper, or brass for the first time you’ll often see that they’re sold with an extra designation. Figuring out the definition is important, especially for a person who’s just beginning their silversmithing journey.

Understanding Metal Temper: The Meaning of ‘Dead Soft’

Dead Soft Metal: This is ideally fully annealed metal, meaning it has been heated and cooled to make it as malleable as possible. It’s the easiest to manipulate for forming and shaping.
Half-Hard Metal: This temper offers a balance between malleability and stiffness, making it suitable for items that need some structural integrity but will still be shaped or bent.
Full Hard Metal: The hardest temper, very stiff and often used for structural components in metalwork that must maintain their shape under stress.

Why ‘Dead Soft’ Matters:

Ease of Use: For beginners, dead soft metal is the easiest to start working with as it requires less force to shape.
Versatility: Starting with dead soft metal allows a silversmith to increase the hardness as needed through work hardening.
Customization: Understanding how to manipulate the temper of metal from dead soft to full hard and back again is crucial for custom jewelry making.

It’s All About Temper

Temper, temper, temper.

That’s what we’re looking at when metal is called “dead soft.”

Dead soft material is most often found alongside two other designations: half-hard, and full hard. These terms describe how malleable the metal is, and it’s a function of heat or stress being applied to the metal.

The problem for many newbies is that they’re looking for some sort of measurement to go with their metal. There is none. A dead soft wire from two different sources may be of different hardnesses.

Even more fun?

Temper is completely relative. 14k white gold, especially nickel-containing alloys, is going to be harder than half-hard copper. Fine silver is softer than sterling silver, which is harder than copper at the same temper.

Overall, you’ll find three different tempers available at most supply houses:

Full Hard- Quite hard, very stiff, often in danger of breaking from work hardening if manipulated too much.
Half Hard- Stiff and springy but still able to be manipulated, half-hard tempers serve as the middle ground of commercial hardness for metal.
Dead Soft- Ideally this is fully annealed metal. In practice, it’s easily manipulated compared to the hardened metal of the same type. Some metals are still rather tough at this temper, but others are incredibly soft.

Which Temper Do You Need?

If you’re just getting started, and not running production pieces, you can just buy dead soft metal and call it good. I’ll explain in the next section how to alter the hardness of metal for your needs.

Full hard metal is best saved for structural components. Things like supports, hinges, and the like all require the metal to maintain it’s shape against force being applied to it. It’s also a good starting point for some workshop tasks, sawing comes to mind, but you need the ability to anneal it afterward.

Full hard metal isn’t used by hobbyists much. I actually can’t recall ever buying metal at this temper. That said, it’s available from a lot of places.

Half-hard material is most often used for frames and other bits where you need hardened material but want to manipulate it. Frames for wire-wrapped pieces are often made with half-hard wire, for instance. It’s also used for structural components that will be reinforced, such as the base wires for wire weaving.

Dead soft metal is the most easily manipulated. I buy all material in dead soft forms so I can get straight to work as soon as the material arrives. The wire will easily bend, sheet metal stamps easily, and pretty much all serious forming work requires metal at this temper.

But, and here’s the thing, you never need to rely on the temper of the metal you bought as long as you have:

A mallet
An anvil
A torch
A fire-proof surface

Because changing all of this is very easy right at the workbench.

The reason I recommend dead soft, instead of full hard, is because it’s easier to work harden metal than anneal it.

Dead Soft to Full Hard and Back Again

I’ve seen many newbies get confused when trying to buy wire or sheet metal for the first time. Temper tends to trip people up, most of us have never had to deal with even the basics of metalworking before deciding to give this whole thing a shot.

Important: We are only talking about non-ferrous or precious metals here. These processes do not work with any kind of steel or iron, and most of the more exotic non-ferrous metals (ie: titanium, niobium) require different techniques as well.

Hardening metal is a simple process. Get a mallet and anvil or stamping block ready and do the following:

Place your metal on the anvil/block
Whack the metal a half dozen times, covering the entire length that needs to be hardened.
Test the metal.
Proceed or whack it some more if the metal isn’t where you want it to be.

dead soft silver — *Note the rawhide hammer is hitting on a steel block, vise versa (steel hammer, rubber block) is also fine.*

Smacking the metal repeatedly causes the internal structure to deform, creating a harder structure. You’ll need to do this evenly around the metal if it’s sheet metal, otherwise, you may end up with a curve in the sheet.

You can also use a steel hammer and a rubber block. The important thing is to make sure that you’re not using two steel surfaces or you’ll deform the metal.

If you end up with a bend it’s not the end of the world. You just have to anneal it.

Softening hard metal is a bit more complicated, but it’s also easily done as long as you have a torch and somewhere safe to heat metal. A tile, fire brick, or even a regular brick will work fine if you don’t have a soldering setup.

The process is pretty easy:

Place your metal on a fire-safe surface
Hit it with the torch until you reach the correct temperature (ie: when the torch’s flame turns orange on silver).
Let the metal cool until it’s no longer glowing.
Stick it in some water and hold it there until the water quits hissing.
Dry off the piece with a shop towel
Proceed, or repeat the process if the metal didn’t soften enough.

what is dead soft silver — *Note the orange flame. This is actually just a hair too hot.*

Read More: Guide to Soldering Sterling Silver

Quenching in your pickle is a controversial technique in many circles. There are a lot of bench jewelers who’ve been doing it for decades. On the other hand, it can release acidic vapors into the air and if you’re not careful it can also spatter acid on the bench.

It can make removing firescale a touch faster, but if you’re in that much of a hurry you’ll find that a rotary tool or flexshaft with abrasive discs will strip it off even more quickly.

Annealing metal relieves some of the internal stress that’s created by hardening processes. You can sometimes even see the metal relax when you’re annealing. It’s most noticeable with bent sheet metal, where the curve will soften after quenching.

You can also use pliers and hold a bit of metal over the stove if you don’t have a torch at home. In my experience, it’ll work about as well as a big butane torch, but it’s not going to be as hot as a propane or acetylene/oxygen torch.

Annealing and hardening your metal are integral to forming operations of any kind. The cool part about that is it means you can just buy dead soft metal and have at it if you know what you’re doing.

So, now you know what dead soft means and how to make it other tempers. The only remaining question is what to do with this newfound knowledge!