Brass fumes?

[kyotie11]

Does brass give of toxic fumes? I am wanting to make a coat rack for my neighbour so I can. Show her what I am doing.

[Chinobi]

i dont have all the specifics but i have gleaned enough to know that if its a copper/zinc alloy you could potentially burn off zinc oxide, which is the same stuff you get from forging galvanized steel (also known as a bad idea) check and doublecheck your alloy, and search through the forums for brass and bronze forging to get yourself familiarized with what to expect in terms of fumes and the tempermental nature of forging brass and the temperature ranges to work at.

 

big billowing plumes of hazardous white smoke floating over the fence is not going to help you get on good terms with your neighbor =/

[John B]

Forge steel and brass hot brush it, then lacquer,

Brass is not really a forging metal, best suited to casting. That is not to say it can't be forged, just verging on difficult.

[Gundog48]

Brass isn't great for forging, but copper is! Brass brushing, as suggested, would be good, or you could clean up the steel and fire-colour it by tempering it then lacquering. Copper is great to work with, and has a lovely finish after a clean with a wire wheel. I'd planish it once you're done both for aesthetics and to work harden it so it won't bend under the weight!

[Dodge]

i dont have all the specifics but i have gleaned enough to know that if its a copper/zinc alloy you could potentially burn off zinc oxide, which is the same stuff you get from forging galvanized steel (also known as a bad idea) check and doublecheck your alloy, and search through the forums for brass and bronze forging to get yourself familiarized with what to expect in terms of fumes and the tempermental nature of forging brass and the temperature ranges to work at.

 

big billowing plumes of hazardous white smoke floating over the fence is not going to help you get on good terms with your neighbor =/

I second that. If you get brass hot enough i.e. beyond a molten state, the zinc will indeed burn off just like burning galvanized steel. This is due to galvy been a hot zinc plating. The zinc burns as a white powdery smoke. (Its kinda how they get zinc oxide that you smear on you nose to prevent sunburn) You get brass to a molten state in the normal process of brazing, however, if it is over heated, it will flash as the zinc burns away, leaving white zinc oxide deposits on the steel and in the air

[B P]

Zinc melts at 787.2°F and copper melts at 1,984°F. Since the zinc is molten long before the copper there's a pretty big chance of it overheating and burning off the zinc which is very bad for you. You'll definitely want to be wearing a respirator and be working in a well ventilated area.

 

I've heard that it's best to do anything containing zinc very quickly so that it's hot enough to melt the other alloying metal along with the zinc before the zinc has a chance to burn off.

 

If you just want the color a safer alloy to work with would be something like C954 aluminum bronze (85% copper, 11% aluminum, 4% iron). The aluminum makes it much more resistant to tarnishing anyways. I'd probably make sure you don't get one containing nickel though.

 

If you want to work with brass/bronze though you'd probably be better off casting it rather than trying to forge it. The best investment I've been able to find is petrobond (google it). It's made of really fine silica so you can get very detailed molds and it's also really cheap and comes in more reasonable amounts so you could just get 10lbs rather than the minimum of 50-100 of other stuff you'll tend to find which you can't really even do properly if you don't have the equipment since it's designed to be used with a vacuum.

 

You can also try to make your own greensand. There's a pretty good tutorial here on how to do it: http://backyardmetalcasting.com/greensand.html

 

I assume this project is ancient history so I'm mostly posting this for anyone else reading it.

[ThomasPowers]

Hand forged bronze is a not uncommon accent in blacksmithing HOWEVER only a very few alloys can be hot forged; the rest are just throwing away money.

 

Silicon bronze is one of the workable alloys.

[Nobody Special]

Why not work it cold and anneal often? There'd still be some risk, and you'd still need precautions against overheating and good ventilation to avoid fume fever, but it would probably be a lot safer than hot work, and brass is pretty soft in comparision to steel. 

[Glenn]

You can get fume fever from brazing with ox/ac if you overheat the brazing rod. 

[Frosty]

Burning zinc is very distinctive, it burns with a bright cyan (green blue) flame. Until you see the flame you aren't going to get fumed. By time you see the smoke and ash (the lacy floating thingies) it's too late it's already in the air.

 

However, unless you're sensitive you have to breath more fumes than you might believe.

 

It is NOT heavy metal poisoning, zinc is NOT a heavy metal so that isn't a problem. Zinc is in fact a necessary mineral and will be absorbed into your system with excess flushed out in your urine. Without zinc in our system we don't live too long.

 

That said BREATHING zinc oxide is a B-A-D thing! Breaking it down so it can be absorbed and carried away causes chemicals to be secreted in your lungs that are NOT good for your lungs in any quantity. A little is normal, to clean dust and the sometimes stickier stuff we breath, tobacco smoke for a common example. your body will secrete as much as necessary to flush bad things out of your lungs, unfortunately zinc smoke is composed of hooks, that's how it make the lacy ash some stuff. The hooks set in your lung tissue and it doesn't flush easily so your body starts dissolving it.

 

Here's where it gets deadly. It's not a toxin as such, your body's need to flush it out can cause pneumonia of a not easily hacked up and out kind. Paw Paw Wilson caused his own demise by spending WAY too much time in a zinc smokey atmosphere, open doors and windows may not be enough to clear the air. He probably would of lived had he not refused to go to the doctor. He had COPD as well.

 

Regardless of how one person OD'd on Zinc smoke it's a B-A-D thing to breath! However if you are NOT sensitive to zinc it's not something to panic about. Just turn the fire off, leave the room and don't subject yourself to zinc smoke for a week or so. That's a conservative time nothing set in stone, a touch of smoke and you may not even notice, spend an hour or two in a room full of smoke and you  probably ought to see the doc.

 

Better yet, pay attention to what you're doing, take note of what color it was when the cyan flame started and don't do that again. Lighten up on the heat BEFORE that color.

 

Everything we do with hot metals has the potential to put bad things in the air. Ever forge weld? Notice the smoke like vapors coming off the steel? Yeah, iron vapor and probably whatever else is in the alloy. Don't panic, just don't get in the smoke if you can help it. A little cross ventilation usually does the trick if you aren't burning a bunch of . . . whatever is causing the smoke. Just stay out of it and wear a respirator if necessary. Heck, wear one anyway if you're worried. It's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[eseemann]

Frosty is right about the Zinc fumes and from what I hear fume fever is not always deadly but even a light case feels like the flu bug has some personal resentment against you.  Paw Paw Wilson was overcome by a fatal does of Zine fumes. Fun fact, Zinc Oxide is that white stuff people put on the nose to keep it from burning.   

[Aminsaleem]

Hi All

I am looking to make a tandoori oven from an old Victorian chimney pot made of clay and a nice old Victorian round air vent to use as the base of the grill for the coals to sit on and allow in airflow.

Looks like the oven will get up to around 500 C and brass melts around 800 C.

So the question is would that heat produce any toxic fumes?

Am based in London

Look forward to your reply.

Thanks

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

4 hours ago, Aminsaleem said:

based in London

Welcome aboard. We won't remember that once leaving this post, hence the suggestion to edit your profile to show your location in this thread. READ THIS FIRST  It will help with other tips as well. Sorry I can't help with the question but I'm sure folks who are familiar with melting brass will be along shortly.

[Frosty]

Welcome aboard, glad to have you.

Save the question and use iron. The zinc and who knows what else in the "brass" alloy can oxidize and produce zinc oxide vapor at below melting temperature and some brass alloys contain more dangerous metals like lead. Safety wasn't nearly as much an issue in Victorian times as now Lead based paints for example, the old Kelly Green pigment is arsenic base as was a shade of red, some white pigments were lead oxide. 

No telling what's in a Victorian era brass casting and iron isn't going to melt if your Tandoori fire runs away.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

When I was in the USCG '64-'68 we used tons of red lead primer without any PPE. Maybe that's what is wrong with me.

[Frosty]

Hmmmm, 64-68 I was casting sinkers, bullets and just melting wheel weights on Mother's kitchen stove. Dad and I were using mercury in our gold pans and some of the larger recovery machinery. We NEVER retort recovered the gold, we dissolved the amalgam in nitric acid, removed the gold then used zinc to precipitate the mercury out of solution. PPE? rubber gloves and safety glasses, when we remembered. Lots of folk thought I smoked my hands were always stained by the nitric acid, fumes make for much more even stain than splashes and drips by the way.

Hmmmm, early heavy metal poisoning might be why we get along so well? 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

When I was stationed on a Light Station (Lighthouse) the main light had mercury as the bearing, which the rotating light floated on. The mercury had to be strained annually. The first time I did that I didn't realize how heavy mercury is. I pulled the drain plug and 50 pounds of mercury came pouring out and took the bucket out of my hands, with the mercury running down 135 steps to the ground floor. I swept it all up and strained it with out any PPE.

[Frosty]

Heh heh heh 50lbs. of mercury isn't very much, about 7 cups. A bucket full would've ripped your arms out of their sockets. The online calculator says 112.95 lbs/gal. 

I remember having a new bowling ball drilled and the guy at the alley making sure it was balanced by floating it in mercury. If he liked you he'd let you poke a finger in it to see how hard it pushed back. I miss the good old days when mercury wasn't bad for you. <sigh>

Frosty The Lucky.

[Chris C]

How could you miss the good old days, Frosty?  If you stuck your finger in mercury, unprotected, you must surely be dead as a door nail.......................and, of course, you shot your eye out when you pulled the trigger on your first B-B rifle.  How did we ever make it all these years without the "powers-that-be" telling us what we could and couldn't do?  It's amazing any of us could be alive today.

[Frosty]

Nah, mercury wasn't poisonous in those days, heck they still pack your cavities with amalgam don't they? 

I wish Chris, I didn't own a BB gun till I was in my mid 40s and that was left with me for some reason. Dad wouldn't have one in the house, said it made kids think of a gun like a toy said the same thing about .22s. No, my first rifle was a WWII surplus 8mm. German Mauser Dad sporterized. Hand made myrtle wood stock, sniper trigger mechanism replaced with one that would discharge if pulled ONLY one direction though he polished it till it was like silk. 

Remember the days when surplus stores had rifles by the barrel full out front? Mostly American surplus but lots of German too and I don't recall anybody wanting a Japanese service rifle or pistol. Dad used to take me along to examine the latest batch of Mausers put out front, he must've looked over hundreds before picking one.  I have it upstairs and it'll still drive tacks at  WAY farther than I can see through a 4x scope. 

I did get a pellet rifle for Christmas when I was 16 I think but I was bummed I wanted a .22 cal Crossman and he got me a 5mm. Sheridan. "but but. . . DAD nobody else shoots 5mm pellets!"  He and Mother smiled nodding and he said, "And they won't be shooting up your pellets will they?"

You're right though Chris, can't expect modern kids to handle and do dangerous stuff without wrapping them in layers of Fed red safety tape. 

Remember when a chemistry set contained chemicals and directions for experiments? Last one I looked at a couple years ago had SIMULATED experiments! <GAG> I had one that would make several different kinds of explosives, starting with black powder and the advanced ones TNT. Minuscule amounts mind you but you could learn how. 

Truth is I feel lucky I've lasted long enough for the parts to start wearing out.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[Chris C]

 "parts wearing out".................man can I relate to that.  I've been on the operating table 5 times in the last year and half or so and now they tell me I need to see the surgeon about my knee.  Don't know if that means a minor surgery or knee replacement...................but the parts are definitely wearing out.  Just a shame the warranty lapsed years ago, Frosty!    The first rifle I bought myself was a 6.5x55 sporterized Swedish Mauser.  I swear, I can drive a bridge spike into a telephone pole at a hundred yards with it.  Something about those old rifles.  Really like shooting it.  Took it to the Whittington Center in Raton, NM and put 10 shots in one ragged hole at 200 yds.  Love that rifle................but I digress. 

Mercury is, indeed, heavy stuff..............and a whole lot more dangerous to the human body than we like to admit because of how much fun it was/is to play with.  I had a little bottle I took to school and we'd pour it on the teacher's flat desk and gleefully push the puddle around.  We played hockey with it one time and a friend of mine missed it and when it sailed off the desk and hit the floor it shattered into 10,000-gazillioin pieces.  We never found any of it.

[Frosty]

I've been reasonably lucky with my joints, only my thumbs hurt much, sort of the price for twisting drill rod year round but Cherry capsules really ease the pain. I shattered my left elbow falling off a tilt deck trailer but the surgeon did a heck of a job putting it back together. Well not exactly he rebuilt it so it works, doesn't look like a normal elbow but it works pretty well. I know a lot of people who've had knees and hips replaced, most were up on their feet in a day or two. Most said they'd waited too long. 

The first rifle I bought myself was an M1 Carbine for fun and a .270 BSA for deer. I left the carbine qne 8 mm. when I moved here and discovered the .270 was a little light for Alaskan game, Caribou sure but not moose and certainly not Griz. Dad was still hunting and I didn't have the heart to ask for the 8 so I picked up a .338 Win mag. I thought the 8 mm had a kick but the .338 mag is just plain nasty. I wish I'd gotten a .375 win mag instead, better shock and the recoil is a hard fast push instead of a bruising gorilla slap. The 8 is significantly more accurate but it was intended for long shots. Sweet rifle.

I shouldn't joke about mercury, it's nasty stuff and I was giving John guff for talking about a quench tank under his forge. I should try sticking to my own standards eh? 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

I keep telling my wife she should have gotten the extended warranty on me; starts getting expensive when the mileage gets high!

As per the brass question: the oven goes to 500 degC; but what temp is the fuel burning at?  Generally it has to be getting higher to bring the oven to temp.  We've done some cooking in a mud oven and then I've used the hot coals in my forge...

My grandfather used to spend the winters casting lead sinkers on an old gas hot plate in a small enclosed room---1920's service station type of thing.  No ventilation. Tons of molten lead---he had a business.   Before the CV19 lockdown we were planning to go to his 95th birthday party, of course he is slowing down a bit.  At 90 he volunteered to help reroof a house...Of course he avoided lead poisoning on Iwo Jima as a Marine so he may be naturally resistant...