Smelting brass

Alarion

Alarion

Joined
Nov 26, 2001
Messages
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I have a number of spent cases I won't use for reloading, and I was wondering if it would be difficult to melt them down for use in knife guards and similar.
Which are the difficulties in smelting brass?
 
Cartridge cases are made from cartridge brass , that is 70% Cu, 30%Zn. It melts somewhere around 1800F. Zinc is very volatile and zinc fumes are toxic. Zinc toxicity is also a problem when welding galvanized steel.
 
If you want to go to the trouble to melt something and cast knife guards and such try making your own alloy of bronze. Much safer than melting mystery brasses or brasses of known zinc composition. 90% copper and 10% or so tin and you have a much nicer metal for knife hardware in my opinion, though I admit I do like brass also. I'm one to talk though, I've had the components to build a small gas fired crucible furnace as well as the copper and tin lying around for over a year and haven't gotten around to it! Though I don't have any experience with casting yet I'll bet anything that a simple copper/tin bronze is easier to cast with good results than the copper/zinc brasses.
 
Another option is aluminum bronze. About 5-10% Al, balance Cu. This alloy is quite strong, is one of the most corrosion resistant copper alloys and has a very nice gold color.
 
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