Quenching Can Cause Cracking- Protect Your Metal In this video, I explain how improper quenching after annealing can cause cracks in silver and gold. I use a cracked 21-karat gold ingot as a real example and walk through why those cracks occurred, what did not cause them, and how overheating followed by immediate quenching shocks the metal. I show how the idea that “hotter quench = softer metal” gets misapplied, how different gold alloys behave, and why sterling silver is especially vulnerable t