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brass melting


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hi everyone,

I am new here and have a problem.  At work they gave me a 15 kw induction oven to melt metal samples. Nobody at work had knowledge about it so i had to find out for my self.

At the moment i manage too melt copper and aluminum. Brass however i did not.  It wont melt totally  or the zinc is cooking and is glowing like the sun. Is it possible the dirt in the melt prevents it.  I tried it fast and slow (3kw and 15kw) and from 850 degrees to 1600 degrees. The best result is a half molten substance. i hope someone can help.

bvd.

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Welcome aboard Cikker, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you'll have a chance of hooking up with members living within visiting distance.

Did they supply proper PPE and ventilated space to melt metal? Why are you melting metal at work? How much experience do you have handling molten metal? One mistake and molten metal can put you in the hospital with disfiguring or crippling, even fatal injuries, not to mention burning the place down. 

Frosty The Lucky.

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As brass melts at a lower temp than copper; if you are melting copper then there is a problem with the brass.  Having the zinc burn out is a common problem, after it's molten if you go for a super heat.  We always added new zinc just before the pour and made sure of excessive ventilation!!!!  (For small, under a pound, pours; recent US pennies are a metered zinc package.)

Are you sure your scrap is all brass and no brass coated steel was in it?  Magnet helps differentiate the cold scrap!

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i work at a non ferro scrap yard an d a year ago they still sampled the percentage of copper in shredded cable copper by looking at it .and second the brass i used were used bullet casings.my  company  is a global player in ferro but have no idea what i am doing with non ferro. attached my result after melting up to 1500 degrees celsius

brass1.jpg

brass2.jpg

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Cikker: Please put your general location, at least country in the header. If your company is actually processing nonferrous scrap there's no excuse for having you do it without knowing what you're doing. Your melt isn't even close to right.

You're worrying us.

Frosty The Lucky.

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thanks for worrying but not neccesarry.most of the time i melt cupper. i became pretty good in that i think. melting brass is just my own experiment. Except a collega in germany who's on the same level as me i think we are the company's expert's.

as flux i use borax when the samples are very contaminated whit dirt,dust or plastic. all the metal in the sample i need in the melt in order to get a good analyze of the percetages.

and i am from holland

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hoi,

first,this is all new to me this online conversation  so sorry if it looks a little hectic. i am 61 years old and not so web minded. second i am from the netherlands  so my english is sometimes not correct. third, at work i have a good exhaust system by my oven. with the proper filters. i know about the toxic zinc fumes  melting brass. i cannot ask my supervisors how to do my work , i am the "expert" .i don't work at an office but on a metal yunk yard. other rules and priorities. 

The point by melting brass for me is too keep all the metal in the melt including the zinc. this i need to analyze the cooled melt. my employer wants to know the percentages of different metal in the sample. this determines the price for buying and selling.

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thank's for the link to the chemistry article. i know now that with an induction oven you can't make a proper melt to analyze brass. this to the loss off zinc. Because the most we get is brass twist it probably has to be done chemicly. I got an old niton xray scanner but this won't work properly with twist. I even got a spectrograph on probation . this is very accurat , better than x-ray , but only works with melts which surface is polished.

I tell my supervisor about the brass and stick to copper and aluminium.

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