[TheForge] Candle cups

[Ries Niemi]

On Jan 10, 2006, at 1:36 PM, Washington, Aubrey O. wrote:

> What alloy is the brass tubing and rod you can find at the hardware 
> store?  Can it be forged?
>

Brass/ Bronze/ Copper is a very complicated subject. Most people start 
out assuming there is "brass" , "copper" and "bronze".
Well, copper is an element. So pure copper is pretty much always the 
same.
But all the stuff called brass or bronze is any of a hundred or more 
alloys. Each with slightly different recipes, making each good for some 
things, and bad for others.
Color is no guide- there are bright yellow alloys with lead, with no 
lead, with zinc, with no zinc, and with all kinds of other things as 
well.
Most hardware store brass is really crummy for forging, except for the 
leaded kind, which is pretty much impossible to forge.
Bronzes can be really fun to forge, like silicon or naval bronze, or 
frustrating beyond belief- like "architectural " bronze, for example, 
which crumbles like cookie dough.

Trial and error will work, but it really is nice to know what you have, 
which means buying it new, at prices from $3 to $5 a pound.  I know- 
thats a lot of money. But if your "free" material is a puddle on the 
floor of your forge, its not much of a saving.

And to make matters worse, some alloys are only available in sheet, 
others in round bar but not flat or square, pipe or tube is available 
in some but not others.
Silicon bronze, for example, is tough to find in anything but sheet and 
round bar.

There aint no free lunch, and there is no miracle red metal solution- I 
have bits and pieces of at least 4 alloys in the shop.

Ries Niemi
Industrial Artist

http://www.RiesNiemi.com