He developed the method with Tempilaq, and discovered that it annealed the necks but left the base pretty much cool.
I strongly suspect, though, that I'm not getting my brass hot enough to cause any damage or even fully annealing- I did some last night in a dark room and never detected the "red glow" guys mention by the time I was removing my cases from the flame, and the case heads were never hot enough to be painful to the touch. Also, as mentioned, brass still takes a considerable amount of force to resize.
The "red glow" actually means the case neck is getting over-annealed--a common misconception that arose from many old-time writers describing putting the cases upright in a pan of cold water with the shoulders and necks exposed, and then using a torch to heat the necks until they glowed. But brass does NOT have to get that hot to anneal, which you would discover if using Templiq. (That old method also advised tipping the cases over in the water to finish the annealing process, but brass does NOT require quenching to finish the annealing process, unlike some other metals. Instead it anneals just the same if allowed to air-cool.)
Yes, the case heads get warm when using the finger-method, and continue to warm up a little after the cases are dropped. But they do not reach annealing temperature during the short period of time they're relatively hot. That was another thing Fred Barker checked out when devising the method.
