How flexible is cast brass?

[JamesBBrauer]

Say I pour a casting about the same dimensions as a no. 2 pencil. After it comes out of the mold, can I get it warm and bend it into shape? After about four tries, I managed to pour a brass stamp for burning a logo on woodworking projects. So I've done it enough to know I can waste a lot of fuel on experiments. If anyone has tried something like this, I would be interested in any tips or cautions. It seems like it would be too grainy to bend.

I make glass marbles and eyeballs, and want to pour something like an octopus tentacle, then bend them into 'S' shapes to kind of slither up and around the glass.

thanks
James B
www.hotworksgallery.com

[pkrankow]

It should be rather bendable. You can also heat it if it gets too stiff from work hardening.

Phil

[ThomasPowers]

WHAT ALLOY? (or very to not at all---depending!)

[JamesBBrauer]

Thanks for the quick replies. I'm not sure of the alloy. It came as an (expensive) piece of 1-1/2" round stock from the local metal supply place. I still have some of the original bar, I'll look when I get home.

[dan_m]

I'd try it and see how it works. Also, what material is your mold? It seems like the easiest thing to do might be to cast the pieces to their finished shape. If you're already pouring brass, pretty much all you need to make investment molds is a cheap pottery kiln, wax, sand, and plaster. Your originals would be made of microcrystalline wax, invested in plaster & sand molds, then burnt out for a couple days in your kiln. Check out the topic that's pinned at the top of this section for more information on that process.

[ramsies11]

brass should be fairly malliable, considering that copper is one of the most malliable things in the world and it is a main componet in brass. though, id have a torch handy just in case. though i should warn you though that with brass, once you heat it redhot, you CANNOT work it cold, it will bend and snap. its happend to me when i was making brass bracelets. cast brass should be very very malliable still.

[ThomasPowers]

Unfortunately metal doesn't work that way. Pure iron is *very* malleable but add just 3% carbon to it and you get cast iron that ISN'T.

Brasses usually have more than 3% other elements.

[ianinsa]

If you heat and quench(Brass works opposite to steel), you may have some sucsess cold. However the chances of something breaking is inversely proportional to its value to you(Murphy's 17th law of industry I think)

[ramsies11]

ian- so true, i was almost done making a twisted brass bracelet and i was putting in the last bend and it snapped.