Forging Brass

[Wesley Chambers]

So I picked up a 1 inch dia. rod 22 inch in length and wanted to do more than just cut it into slugs for knife fittings. I can find general working heat ranges on google but I would rather get some info from someone here that forge works brass personally. With aluminum I can use the "feel" of the metal against the anvil to know when to forge but I've never worked with brass in the fire.. any tips? Also I know with Al I can heat once and work a long time and even quenching seems to anneal it, guess Im just looking for basic brass forging advice~ Thanks all~

[Steve Sells]

have you looked in the Non ferrous metals section?

[Sukellos]

I'm not an expert but I do know the following about copper based metals (copper, brass, bronze) from experience. Now this is for the plain old stuff, not any of the modern alloys that are used in modern machining.

Copper doesn't cast well. Copper and tin (bronze) and copper and zinc or antimony (brass) are better for casting. In the ancient writings they seldom distinguished between brass and bronze.

Heating to a red heat will anneal them. It doesn't matter if they are cooled slowly or quickly, they will be softer afterwards.

No combination of heating and quenching will harden them. The only way I know of to harden them is by cold hammering them. Be careful, if you cold hammer too much the metal becomes brittle. If it becomes brittle you can soften it again by re-heating. You don't have to have the metal hot to forge it. Cold forge until it gets hard and then heat to anneal and keep working.

In the "bronze age", swords, axes, daggers and the like were cast to shape and then the edges were cold hammered to harden them.

Rubbing them with a combination of salt and vinegar will make them shiny.

You now know all that I know about working copper, bronze, and brass.

This is a hoot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ15vUjgqvw&feature=PlayList&p=7F338360A9BEA235&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=43

[Wesley Chambers]

have you looked in the Non ferrous metals section?

lol ya know I did a forum search for brass and must have only been searching the blacksmithing sub-forum I forget sometimes we have other sections! thanks guys~

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

I am planning some brass workings myself, as I have a steady supply of brass scrap from work that I can buy inexpensively. From what I have read on the IFI forums so far, the temp has to be watched, as a lot of brass has zinc in it, and it burns out if heated too high. A lot of brass is annealed, heat then quench to anneal, then worked cold. Annealing is done whenever the brass gets stiff under the hammer due to work hardening.

Play around with it some, and figure out works best for you, and your setup.

[Frosty]

As a general rule of thumb the worst part about hot forging brass, bronze or copper is how fast heat is conducted to your hand.

Okay, another rule of thumb: If cold forging, sinking, raising, chasing, spinning, etc. it'll go about as far as you can forge it in the first push and if you're making it move very far you can start to think about work hardening after 3-4 blows. Seriously, you can sucessfully take a piece of say 1/4: rd brass farther in one blow with a 12# hammer than you can with a 3# hammer and half a dozen.

Brass work hardens faster than copper by far and I've only tried bronze a couple times with no luck.

If you want the piece hardened once you're finished you need to work harden it but you don't need to peen it till you're ready to throw womething. Instead lay a speaker on it's back and lay the piece on it then play some basey music for a while. I have no specific times so you'll need to experiment if you want to give it a try.

Another surefire way to work harden without hammering is to put it in a cardboard box in the back of your pickup truck and drive some gravel roads for a while. Again, no specific times but a couple hours will make quite a difference. We learned this delivering parts from Father's spinning shop, preventing it is easy too, just pad under the parts so they don't receive hard vibration from the truck. Remembering the truck hardened stuff from Dad's shop I thought of trying the speaker trick and was pleasantly surprised at how well it works but you have to tweek it for the right music, volume, time and such depending on the alloy.

Frosty the Lucky.

[Steve Sells]

So Frosty you are saying Motorhead may harden it faster than Kansas ?

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

HA! I can see the posts now.

I need to fully harden a a brass piece. What do you suggest?

I would go with some early Metallica,or Rob Zombie set to about 8 with a 12" subwoofer, for the entire album. :lol:

[Fe-Wood]

Frosty-

That is too funny!!
You can bet I'm going to try that...I just pulled another set of speakers out of storage for the lathe area today.

[youngdylan]

So I picked up a 1 inch dia. rod 22 inch in length and wanted to do more than just cut it into slugs for knife fittings. I can find general working heat ranges on google but I would rather get some info from someone here that forge works brass personally. With aluminum I can use the "feel" of the metal against the anvil to know when to forge but I've never worked with brass in the fire.. any tips? Also I know with Al I can heat once and work a long time and even quenching seems to anneal it, guess Im just looking for basic brass forging advice~ Thanks all~

Guess the problem with brass is there's SO many grades, all with different forging temperature windows. Also some people blur the line between what is brass and what is bronze. A lot of brasses tend to be both hot and/ or cold short (do you guys call it hot/cold short?)

If you're not sure what grade it is, a general rule it's usually most effective to forge it when barely red. Because of this narrow window it just takes for ever to move a large amount of the stuff. Also as Frosty says, it a PITA cos it's such a good conductor of heat.

You can't go wrong with "suck it and see". If you've got enough spare pieces try it a various tempatures to see what happens.

It's worth noting that copper is an absolute joy to forge, both hot and cold.

[ThomasPowers]

Many alloys just don't forge worth a hoot. Some forge quite well. With scrap *NEVER* pay for a bunch without checking how it forges *first*. (and remember two "identical" bars from the same place may not be the same alloy!)

Forge at a very low dull red as seen in a completely dark shop!

Silicon Bronze is a good alloy, generally available and can be tigged as well.

There is no length of copper alloy that will fit in the typical shop that will have one end at forging temp and the other end cool enough to hold---ALWAYS use tongs!

[Frosty]

Frosty-

That is too funny!!
You can bet I'm going to try that...I just pulled another set of speakers out of storage for the lathe area today.

Sure, go for it, take notes and let us know how it works BUT if you post a YouTube link and I hear ANY inagodda devida I'm going to hunt you down and savage you mercilessly!

Frosty the Lucky.

[youngdylan]

Silicon Bronze is a good alloy, generally available and can be tigged as well.

Thomas

I've a job I'm quoting for in Bronze. Till now I've always used nickel aluminimum bronze CA104 (sorry, don't know the Cxxxxx number) Trouble is, it's a bit yellow for the customer. He's kinda looking for some more like the "tradititional statue" bronze ... almost browny greeny, you know .... bronze colour. How does silicon bronze (CS101 - C65500 ???) fit with this colour; it seems a lot of bronze is cast these says using silicon bronze.

[ThomasPowers]

I have trouble describing colours and patinas to others. I strongly suggest you get a sample and see how you think it looks. To me it gets brown-y but I have not tried patinating it green-y. Much more like copper than like brass to my eye.

I know that it is used a lot in architectural work as it's workable, weldable, etc (and cast able as you have mentioned)

[arftist]

Thomas

I've a job I'm quoting for in Bronze. Till now I've always used nickel aluminimum bronze CA104 (sorry, don't know the Cxxxxx number) Trouble is, it's a bit yellow for the customer. He's kinda looking for some more like the "tradititional statue" bronze ... almost browny greeny, you know .... bronze colour. How does silicon bronze (CS101 - C65500 ???) fit with this colour; it seems a lot of bronze is cast these says using silicon bronze.

Absolutely bid the job for silicon bronze. If you don't get the job because the price of the silly bronze is too high, be happy, because if you did get it and used yellow brass (360, 380, 385) you will be VERY unhappy. Silicon bronze will do what you want it to do.

[youngdylan]

Absolutely bid the job for silicon bronze. If you don't get the job because the price of the silly bronze is too high, be happy, because if you did get it and used yellow brass (360, 380, 385) you will be VERY unhappy. Silicon bronze will do what you want it to do.

Thanks for the replies re silicon bronze. Kinda wondering if it's much more expensive than the aluminium bronzes or am I being screwed. I can find plenty o suppliers for ally bronze (CA104). They typically quote £9/kg. I can only find one supplier (in the UK) for silicon bronze (CS101) and they're talking around £14/kg for a bar or 2 and £11/kg for a few 100 kg.

[Mainely,Bob]

Anywhere near the water?
Old bronze prop shafts are a favorite around here and when you find them they can be had for whatever scrap prices are at the time.