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Bronze rod - beryllium...uh oh?.


Paddy

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:confused:Hello,

I've just got a piece of freebie brass 3/8 rod, about 12" from a supplier, its listed in a guide as CDA Alloy 360 free cutting. I looked up the MSDS and it noted a whole list of carcinogens, including beryllium - sounds not good.

Do I chuck it, and go for something else like bronze?. Or forge on!

I just want to have a play at some other types of metal ornamentally.

I use on aluminum 6061 - T6 for shoemaking, and have been told the 2024-T4is good also.

Cheers,

paddy

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Beryllium is bad news. VERY toxic. I was through a foundry a few months ago that casts a lot of Beryllium copper they have to have to clear everone not wearing a respirator out of the area when casting the berylium and especially cutting and grinding it. I think it may have been powered respirators.
The plant manager told me that the grinding was far more dangerous than the melting, but I don't think I would take the risk for the sake of a few dollars worth of bronze.

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Return it and get your money back. Beryillium is BAD news, you've read the MSDS and you have to ask?

Take it back, if they give you any crap tell them you'll be telling EVERYBODY you meet they sell TOXIC materials without care.

Failing getting your money back store it, toss it, just don't give it away or forget and use it.

Frosty

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Cheers Guys,

It was as i'd thought once I saw the minute quantities and carcinogen warning - thats that.

No way i'm using that, the girlfriend would kill me for toxifying the cat!.

Thanks,

paddy

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You can't forge 360 anyway, it is 38 percent zinc and 3 percent lead. IF there is any beryllium at all, it would be an accidental trace amount that they probably have to list for liability reasons. If not, me and every other machinist that work brass are all goners, because 360 is easily the most commonly machined brass. Now actual Beryllium Copper, that is another story altogether. Stay far away from that stuff.
If you want to forge brass, get naval brass or silicon bronze. Either forges well.

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Also for "spring" applications. It has been used a lot for non-sparking tooling for the oil patch as well.

Beryllium scares the bejezus out of me after I read up on it---especially when I talked with a fellow that worked in a commercial brass foundry that told me they were required to junk an entire train car load of brass scrap *and* clean/decontaminate the scrap container it was dumped in if they found *1* piece of Be containing scrap.

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A lot of the castings the foundry I was in are for undersea telecommunications equipment. They told me they had seen some that had been brought back up after two years under the ocean, and they were as shiny as the day they went down.

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  • 1 month later...

We go through a lot of BeCU for machining electrical connectors. It is heat treatable, and is a pretty useful material, and very expensive. Beryllium by itself is very toxic. Normal machining is not considered dangerous, but grinding/sanding is, as Beryllium is an inhalation hazard.

360 brass is another item we use a lot of, and is a really common item found in machine shops as said before.Never heard any warnings on 360 brass like BeCu where every box has a safety warning on it. Copper sometimes has warnings on it for lead content, yet it is used in food plants for cooking vessels.

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