OK, Thanks.

Excellent points by everyone. It appears to me, in order to achieve the correct temperature for annealing, (drawing the temper) a lead bath inside a digitally controlled oven or kiln would serve well, being more controllable and therefore not relying on "reading the metal". In addition, the infrared thermometer could be used to "shoot" the lead to insure the correct temperature was achieved. Correct or incorrect?

I prefer wood to plastic, leather to nylon, waxed cotton to Gore-Tex, and split bamboo to graphite.