So I need some brass for bolsters and pommels. Brass is not cheap! But I can find brass pieces parts here and there so the question is can I melt these things down and make my own raw stock to use for knives... Answer... Hell yeah!
If you heat the brass to dull red, then plunge it into cold water, it will anneal it and you can keep on forging and annealing until you arrive at what you want, without work-hardening or cracking.
thanks for posting this I'm trying to work a brass rod right now and kept splitting the edges due to stress fracture. hadn't been able to find anything online about forging brass until this. also thank you everyone for your comments they were very helpful about the annealing in between working.
You could possibly go by a local machine shop they should have drops (left over peices of brass) that they would sell to you. I know we have it at the shop that I work at. That peice you poured sure shined up nice, thanks for sharing!
couple of things you didn't exactly do right. First, there is a special flux that should go into your "Crucible" (it's not a ladle). Second, there are special release agents that can be dusted into your casting pot when you pour. Third, when melting down the brass, find a piece of steel, or a piece of high temperature pottery to cover your crucible. This will minimize oxidation and will help the crucible hold in heat. Your brass will melt sooner, be a more consistent melt, which will produce a far better pour. The last thing that you did wrong, was you tried forging the brass. It cannot really be hammered and forged in the traditional sense because of its unique properties. The instant yo u start hammering brass to forge and shape it, it immediately starts hardening and as you are now aware, it hardens very quickly. Perhaps the only way to really reshape your brass is to shape it in a rolling mill. Because of how it hardens quickly, the brass constantly needs to be annealed, even more so than the silver. You said that you shaped silver. I am certain that you learned rather quickly, that the silver is also a work hardened metal. You probably experienced cracking and flaking in your early efforts. The cracking and flaking of the brass is more prevalent than silver because it's a harder metal that compacts much quicker and quickly becomes dense and won't move. To make it workable again requires that it be annealed to soften it again. You can forge brass, but it must be heated to a cherry red, almost a red orange color. It must be hammered and shaped very quickly while it still has a glow. The instant the glow fades, put it back into the fire to reheat. Brass is a rich mixture copper and zinc, with a little bit of tin thrown in. Too much tin will turn brass into bronze. If you take a small piece of brass and heat it to a dull red hot color and immediately quench it in cold water, it will stay rather soft and malleable for a time. It can be forged in its softened state. But the instant it slows and it's movement stiffens, you must anneal and then quench it in cold water again. Be careful not to push the metal too hard or too far. If you do, it will split and crack, and you will need to start over. A metal rolling mill is still the best way to move and to shape brass... thank you for sharing.
I just found your video on brass melting & forging. I'm a locksmith and I know most locksmiths have a lot of mis-cut keys and old lock cylinders just thrown in a bucket. you might check with your local guys.
Brass is a copper alloy, it work hardens like steal but unlike steel it moves better when cold. . Heat it up and then quench it in water. After working it a for awhile, heat and quench. That should allow you to shape it easier.
I think your confusing brass and bronze. Brass is copper and zinc, bronze has tin. Both can have other elements, but those are the primary ones. I believe you when you say your experience lends you to air cool. I'm not a goldsmith or metallurgist but I do metal casting with copper and brass as a hobbyist. Based on my limited experience I rely on tech manuals to supplement my knowledge. That is where I'm pulling this info.
I'm sorry to interrupt gentleman, but seeing that you seem to know about metals I decided to ask you some questions: 1. I have collected a great deal of scrap bronze and brass items (I cannot tell them apart), can I melt them all together to cast ingots? 2. Do these metals give off toxic fumes when melted? What precautions should I take?
1) Can you melt them together? Sure, but you'll get an alloy of unknown mix. Do you have a plan for what you want to do with the ingots? If it's to sell, you'll get more value as scrap. 2) Brass has zinc and it will give off fumes when the temp gets to hot. Zinc fumes can cause issues en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_fume_fever Vent and watch your temps if you do try to melt your scrap.
I have a small charcoal forge and I preted to use the metal to make fittings for knives so the quality of the material will not be critical whatsoever. How do I use borax? by simply putting it into the crucible? Thank you for your time!
me and my wife used to collect brass novelties. you can usually go to goodwill and find shelves full of solid brass nicknacks and pick them for pennies
+Mark Frazer Agreed. I found a solid brass unicorn, and pegasus, both weighing around 3 pounds each, and costing less than $8 together. They are horribly gaudy, and so '70s, but they make up the centerpiece of my table, and I would never melt them; but it shows just how much scrap you can get for a fraction of the scrap price at most thrift stores.
if you ever come across sinks on the side of the road with the faucet on it, thats brass. just pop off the faucet with a set of channel locks and its at least a pound or two its just nickel coated. hope that helps, I pick up at least 2 or 3 a week by finding them that way!
propane tanks have a good solid valve made from brass if you know someone who makes wood burners out of them, ive got a sack full, going to try and smelt it soon, thanks for uploading and sharing
mr. dickinson, check out a locksmith shop. when i worked in one we kept a 5 gal. bucket full of miscut keys, maybe twice a year it'd go to the recycler we'd get paid the scrap value of the metal. i'd imagine for a small increase over scrap value you could get a bunch of brass from them, good luck
bill45a1 Where are you located... email me at chandlersstore@mindspring.com maybe we can work out a barter... will be a while but shoot me off an email and we can work it out
Doesnt brass Like copper , Work Harden and require constant annealing to shape....... ok i guess i should have read through the comments , someone has already explained how brass work hardens. anyway ... love the channel and certainly admire all the work you do
i just watched this video, a good source for brass, if you have a soda manufacturer around your area or a brewery, the service technicians that repair the machines just throw away the procon pumps and they are usually made of nothing but brass. they usually weigh about 2 to 3 pounds and they just throw the old messed up pumps away. make friends with someone that works at one of those places and youll never have to worry about being without brass.
Very cool. I am making knives for a few family members and will be using a deceased family members decades old buck antlers as scales but also was curious if I could melt down the deceased family members 30+ year old shotgun shell brass & rifle brass to use for the bolsters.
Well now you have a way to make a brass hammer to the from you want, just cast an ingot in the general size and shape you want and forge it to final form. ; )
try to stay away from the smoke and fumes if you are smelting brass and copper. it can release Cu2O in that funny colored smoke that comes off it. also if you are smelting copper for an extended period of time it can absorb into your skin. my friends dad was doing copper pouring for some artist and actually got copper poisoning and was in the hospital for a while.
Make a styrofoam mold whatever shape you want and place it in sand with a handle when metal is hot enough dump in sand and it'll fill in all the holes where the styrofoam perfectly. Also before finishing melt at 100 borax it'll clean all the impurities out of the brass of any metal. Cheers
I use Boric Acid (roach bait) and it seems to work better than Borax. Borax "fluffs" up and almost goes styrofoam, locking out air and seemingly absorbing heat. I've seen it used with copper, but not with brass. Maybe my flame is too cool though?
No, I thought so at first too. I'm not a chemist, but the Borax is sold as laundry additive and the boric acid is sold as roach poison. Borax has a coarser grain to it than boric acid. And they seem to behave differently in the furnace, too. Borax fluffs up at first, then melts but more or less floats on top. The boric acid just goes molten and mixes in with the metal. Not a scientific reply, I know. But I'm a newbie and don't really have the grit for you.
No that's a very interesting question. I would guess that over time they would, or else all the copper on earth would be bonded to zinc. I think there is probably a "copper cycle" just like there is a water and carbon cycle.
if you got a gun range around their is always lot of empty shells just pick them up where that saves you money I seen guy make a 5 pound ingot out of brass shell casings
Chandler, I stumbled across your video while looking for info on melting down brass and copper scrap because I'm a industrial electrician and have more of it then I know what to do with. How long did it take for that thin walled piece to melt down?
+cutter he meant the ladle is meant for melting lead for pouring into toilet flanges and such. the ladle he used is not a lead ladle specifically though or at least not like and I've seen. it's too heavy grade to be for lead only. I'm a plumber and even the largest we have are nowhere near that thick. looks more like a copper/brass crucible to me.
I'd use a block of wood with holes drilled out, and just hammer them out, less fiddly.. then again I get frustrated with fiddly shit easy, so here I am learning to make blades and such... logic huh?
I get plenty of scrap brass fitting from the factory I work at. Just can't convince myself to do any casting with it, so I save it and cash it in to buy 'smithing stuff'. Brass and copper prices are terrible right now, so it just gradually grows. I probably have 1-2 five gallon buckets now of brass scrap
If you are working with a metal, it'll start to work harden over time. You need to heat it up and then let it cool down, that'll remove the work hardening. Somebody down there said put it in water, -do -not- put it in water after heating it for annealing, that'll quench-harden it.
Hi, would you plase tell me what kind of crucible (the melting pot) you used? Cast iron, steel or some sort of ceramics? Also, I had no idea that brass can be casted like this :)
colapundarn Still had to buy the shells. But yeah, probably get loads from a clay shoot. Here in the UK Rifle cartridges are worth too much just to melt them down but i imagine they're cheap as dirt in the US so might be worth it
Are you sure about that MP? Scrap yards buy brass for a little over $1/lbs. But NOT if you melt it down first! I learned that the hard way. They wouldn't take my word on purity, and claimed not to have a way to test it. LOL. Even so, if I owned a range I'd ban people for taking home brass. Or make them pay more to shoot if the take home brass. That's free money!
