I may have mentioned this,but I found out many years ago that if you heat brass pieces red hot that were soldered with ordinary lead solder,the solder becomes alloyed into the brass,making the joint as strong as solid brass. If you try to pull the joint apart while it is red hot,you get long "stalagmites" sticking out of both brass pieces.
Never quench red hot brass. I have had it crack open finding that out. Also have had it warp badly from being quenched while too hot.
If you are a model maker,and use aluminum soda cans four metal,and need it annealed,just carefully heat the can till the paint burns off. Be careful,or the can will melt on you. I had a friend who needed to cut louvers in a model airplane. I made him a louver shaped punch,and showed him how to just punch the louvers into a block of lead. The lead snipped the louvers open at their back sides,and perfectly formed their shape. The annealing process helped make neat louvers,too.
If you want to make miniature furniture,or anything requiring very small complex shapes,like miniature Chippendale drawer pull plates do this: Make your punch the shape you want. Take thin,annealed brass shim stock. Punch the brass into the lead. The lead will neatly snip thin brass or aluminum sheet,leaving perfect punchings that you can dig out,or in the case of brass,melt out. The shapes will just float on top of the melted lead because brass is lighter. Re cast the lead for use again. I haven't tried melting aluminum out,but lead melts at a lower temp,so it should work the same. I have low temp. "filtering metal" that melts at a very low temp that would work even better. But,a small ingot is about $30.00.