So I want to melt/smelt some brass...

[Scott NC]

  Thanks.  I cast skeleton "bodies"  to go with them and gave them away one halloween.  Look forward to seeing more of your work.

[Cooterbobs.smelts]

I've been playing with pairing brass for about a month or two and I don't add zink.... you can for sure have zink burning off and the more  oxygen you have in the kiln is more vapor... if your  Pouring in a graphite mold you're going to find the chemical white scale sometimes a yellow tint....

 O hammered dog that is zinc oxide  Now they say once it's cool you are safe to be around that garbage but I do not trust that....  Practice and preach double checked for your PPE and be sure you think 5 steps ahead rest respirator shield leathers. Also do a very very aware aware check on crucible for damages and defects..... The clean tool is a clean pool a slag off is a trash....

I've been using kinetic sand for my casting believe it or not it has done me great but.

To all the beginners like me do your research you can playou can play most of the way you're gonna pay...

Stay safe peeps and pour on 

[Frosty]

You need to do more reading Bob. It's NOT possible to "smelt" brass. Smelting is a term with a specific meaning, to refine ORE into metal. Brass being an alloy has no ore, it can NOT be smelted.

The term for what you're doing is, "MELTING." You melt metal to pour into molds or perhaps mix with other metals to alloy them. 

Why would you add zinc to a brass melt, don't believe in flux? Plain old 20 Mule Team borax melts and floats on the surface of a brass melt preventing contact with ambient oxy and oxidation. Keeps the zinc in the brass and out of your lungs. Skim it as you pour of course.

Are you making open face or cope and drag flask molds? 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Guest]

I want to have this brass item melted into a flat round disk, like a plaque. I'm in Florida but willing to travel to have it done. I can't find a brass foundry that will do a small job like that.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Welcome from the Ozark Mountains. We won't remember your location once leaving this post hence the suggestion to add it in your profile. May I ask why that nice urn instead of scrap brass.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

[Guest]

I'm trying to make a brass plaque that can eventually be engraved. I found this item in my father's belongings after he passed away. I have no use for it but thought it would be nice to repurpose it.

[JHCC]

Check to see if any colleges or art schools in your area teach casting; you might be about to get one to melt this down and recast it as a class project. 

Most foundries bigger than a hobbyist pouring at home are going to be working much larger batches than your one piece, so finding someone who will melt and pour that urn and that urn alone could be difficult. 

Depending on the thickness of the sides and the specific alloy, it might be possible to have someone anneal the brass, cut the urn apart, hammer the sides flat, and cut out your plaque from the resulting sheet. You could even give it a try yourself!

(Whatever you do, make sure before doing anything else that there aren’t someone’s ashes still inside.)

[Scott NC]

  It may be obvious, but if you do find a hobbyist to cast that for you, I would do my best to vett them and see examples of their previous work, preferably in person, or it may be ruined.  You don't want to hear, "Oops, sorry about that".  I get nervous working on irreplacable things, including my own.

[Guest]

Great ideas. Thanks to all of you. It's empty. Thankfully! That would've been quite a shock for me.

[Goods]

If you not attached to the vase itself and if it has a reasonable value, you may be better off selling it as it is to someone who would enjoy it for what it is. Then, use that cash to buy brass in the dimensions that you want to work with.

I know that’s lots of “if’s” but that was my first thought when I saw this post.

Keep it fun,

David 

[Frosty]

Good advice all so far and I only have one thing to add. Please don't let someone talk you into doing it yourself, melting brass can be a serious health hazard even if it's simple copper zinc alloy, many bras alloys contain lead to make them flow better and if it's of foreign make there is no telling what's in it.

Best of luck with it and hopefully you'll be showing us pictures of a successful medallion, plaque etc. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Steve Sells]

No one mentioned the degassing before the pour, or replacing what gasses off , Yes this means the alloy changes when its melted.

[Purple Bullet]

It may not be necessary to melt and recast. John (JHCC) mentioned cutting up, annealing and reshaping the result. Here is another possibility along those lines. A plasma torch could quickly reduce the vase into strips and circles or plaque shapes. The strips can be used as brazing rods with brazing flux to weld everything together. (Brazing is joining high melting temperature metals by heating them and flowing lower temperature brass onto it. Since this is melting the brass together it is welding.) The result will be uneven but you can then sand or grind it down flat. I do knife guards, bolsters and pommels like this using brazing rod and actually brazing them onto the tang. That being said, I think David (Goods) had the best solution, unless there is some symbolic or sentimental reason for re-using the same material.

[Florida Man Metals]

I know this is an old post, but the all the questions shows there is still a need. Man has been making brass since the copper ages. Look up orichalcum if you want your mind blown. I recently made a few batches. I agree with not melting brass alloys. Zinc vaporizes at 1600°f, copper melts just under 2000°f. The longer brass is molten the more zinc vaporizes out of your crucible and forms zinc oxide inside of your furnace. If you want an exact ratio say 80% copper and 20% zinc you have to use copper and zinc not brass. You get copper molten and then add your zinc stir and pour. The longer you take the less zinc you have in your melt. I melt #2 copper into bars for this purpose and sell all my brass to the scrap yard... zinc vapor can make you very sick and can kill because it is very easy to overdose on zinc in vapor form. I personally make bronze way more than brass alloys. Bronze is 90% copper and 10% tin (Sn).  

[George N. M.]

Welcome aboard from 7500' in SE Wyoming.  Glad to have you.  

Although brass is generally much more available and common than bronze I seldom work with brass.  Besides the issue you mention with zinc a lot of brass is an alloy that includes lead, to make machining of the brass easier.  However, that means you cannot forge brass.  When it is hot and you hit it with a hammer it just crumbles because the lead is already in a liquid state because of its low melting point.  And, of course, we are now talking about lead fumes as well as zinc.  Heavy metal fever is a BAD thing.

Bronze can usually be forged unless it is an odd alloy.  Bronze brazing rods are a good source.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Nobody Special]

I second the motion on fume fever sucking. Brass isn't usually forgeable, except for the stuff that is. Also, also, when you add the metals, you have to allow for loss to evaporation. With brass, and adding zinc just before pouring, it's usually about a five percent loss, or so sayeth Metals in the Service of Man.

I forget how much tin ya lose with bronze, but you can't add it to copper shortly before casting the same way as adding zinc to make brass; it'll be too cold and may oxidize to boot. Not all alloys are easily reached in one melt either; with some metals sometimes you have to make intermediate hardening alloys before the final melt. The more I learn about casting, the more I can't believe that I first did it because I thought it would be easier and safer than forging.

[Florida Man Metals]

You shouldn't lose any tin when making bronze if you are using pure tin for your bronze alloy. Tin vaporization occurs at 4000°f well above the melting point of copper. Almost twice the temperature necessary to make bronze. To be fair any molten metal will lose a negligible amout of material in molten form due to evaporation. I agree that you should start your melt with tin in the bottom of your crucible with copper on top of that completely cold. The addition of the tin first actually lowers the melting point of the copper. The problem is most people are starting with pewter not pure tin. There is a ton of different pewter alloys. English pewter for instance is very high in bismuth. Antimony, bismuth, lead, copper, and many other trace metals are in pewter. Pewter is a generic catch all term for any white metal with some proportion on tin in it. Don't use pewter it is a crap shoot.

[Scott NC]

  What do you cast with your fine tuned alloys?  Photo's are worth more than there weight in orichalcum, you know....    We like photos.  Thanks for the tin tip. I never got beyond being a hobbiest at it and you sound like you know your stuff.

[Florida Man Metals]

For the record pewter is one of the hardest metals to refine due to it being a transition metals. Tin is a plaque to gold refiners to deal with. Even electrolytic refining is hard to do in bulk due to the feathery dendrites that form and short out the cell. I have only found one company in the nation that deals with tin in Pennsylvania. They did pay a nice per pound price (15$ at the time I dealt with them) minus refining fee and a dollar per pound penalty for pewter that contained antimony. I have thousands of pounds of pewter. I call myself a white metal buyer and buy it from the scrap yards cheap. They don't know what to do with it either. Not to mention they throw everything that is white into the bin. Good and bad. I always find some amount of sterling silver in my bins. Silver plated die cast and Nickel silver (which is a base metal consisting mainly of copper, nickel, and zinc) are also in there.

[Scott NC]

  Are you a commercial recycler?

[Florida Man Metals]

Who isn't a novice these days. Anybody making real money doesn't want to give away anything for free. I've spent a decade acquiring knowledge. Putting that knowledge and skills together to make a truely profitable business is about impossible in America. Just trying to running your furnace gets the EPA involved. Craft shows and internet sales of finished products is about all you can do these days. I mainly make jewelry. Anything that adds value. I can sell an ounce of fine silver for $25 or I can put it in my rolling mill or hammer it flat and make several rings for say a $100. Free form silver casting makes a good bit of money once you solder a jump ring onto it. Hard to compete with open face sand casting from around the world. Bronze statues is where the real money is but very difficult to make the molds.

[Florida Man Metals]

Nothing special basically raw materials 

[Scott NC]

  Thanks.  I don't disagree, I was just wondering what you do and make.  I had a chance a few years ago at a job at a foundry here that does premiere work and made bronze statues, but they couldn't pay much and had no insurance so I had to pass, so I know what you mean.  But it was hard to pass.  They have an extrodinary niche.  I could have learned so much, I think.  I was just wondering what you produced.  I guess I have decades of off and on experience too, but haven't done it for years and don't intend to anymore.  But iron might be in possible future....

[Florida Man Metals]

If you want practice casting and to see how your sculpting ability pan out I recommend trying pewter. It melts at like 400°F so you don't need to waste money and fuel on the furnace. All you need is a hot plate and kinetic play sand. It is akin to making lead sinkers. Again do it outside and don't breathe the fumes. Much safer than pouring copper and bronze due to the low temperature but builds the same skills. Probably couldn't sell any of the items for a decent price thou. That is why I mainly work with silver, and gold is very costly. You need to save your sweeps.

 

 

[Scott NC]

  I've worked in brass, bronze and aluminum.  I started with gingeys charchol furnace and went from there.  I've done lost wax, foam, and patterns.  I'm halfway working on a cuppola now but I have other things pressing.  I've often wondered what kind of effect pouring molten metal through a airstream onto a "form" would produce.