There are several ways to reduce the occurrence of strain-age embrittlement, but all methods focus on one aspect reducing the stresses induced into the steel prior to galvanizing. Instead of cold working, which induces stresses into steel, the steel can be hot worked at temperatures between 1100F and 1300F. If it is necessary to cold work the steel, relieving the stresses induced from cold working can be accomplished by heating the steel to 1200 1300F for heavy cold working and up to no more than 1200F for less severe cold working. When bending steel, it is best to allow for a bend diameter at least three times the section thickness. When punching is necessary on thicker steels (3/4 or greater in thickness), the holes should be reamed at least 1/16 around the edge of the hole. When flame cut coping is necessary, such as on structural beams, the minimum radius of the copes should be one inch or greater. Grinding the areas around the cope is recommended to remove small micro-cracks in the steel from the flame cutting process.