Bending brass (sandwich on steel)

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Sep 25, 2020
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Hey guys im attempting to make a balisong and have bought some specific materials to make it. I got some 3mm brass plates to use as handles and was going to use the sandwich technique to wrap my steel. So i went with 3mm thick brass so that it holds a decent tensile strength thinking brass is easy to work with but the sucker just wont move… i never worked with brass so i didnt know 3mm would be a fathermocker to bend. Can i heat the brass enough so that i can sandwich the plates around the thickness of the steel? If so what temps are we taking without melting it? Thanks a lot (any other advice is welcome too)
 
First, 3mm is thick.
Second, the type of brass matters a lot. Some can be annealed to bend easily, others are brittle.
Last, brass anneals by heating to dull red and quenching in water. That softens it. Bend as needed. If the bending stiffens up, re-anneal. Anneal as often as needed to complete the bend. A soft hammer ( brass, wood, plastic, lead)will help flatten the bend area.
 
Last edited:
First, 3mm is thick.
Second, the type of brass matters a lot. Some can be annealed to bend easily, others are brittle.
Last, brass anneals by heating to dull red and quench9ng in water. That softens it. Bend as needed. If the bending stiffens up, re-anneal. Anneal as often as needed to complete the bend. A soft hammer ( brass, wood, plastic, lead)will help flatten the bend area.
Thank you so much stacy ill do that and see if it works out with this brass. In the future maybe 1.2mm would suffice you reckon?
 
Depending on how sturdy the handle frame needs to be, 2mm would be much better.

An alternative to bending the brass is to take two bars and smaller piece the same size. Put the smaller piece between the longer bars at the end and put a spacer of the same size at the other end. Hard silver solder or brass braze the one end together. Then cut/file/shape as needed. This is what I do most of the time. It gives perfectly straight and aligned sides to the frame.
 
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