"Doug White" wrote in message
...
Keywords:
In article , Andy Dingley
wrote:
On Wed, 09 Nov 2005 07:49:54 GMT, mark
wrote:

Could a person melt brass or bronze

Go with bronze ("copper" loose change is good, but sort it with a magnet
first) Brass has the problem of zinc boil-off, which is significant for
small loadings.

I've been hearing this for years from knowledgeable folk, so it's
probably correct. I'm just glad I didn't know it in 9th grade when I
made a cast brass fireplace tool bracket. I just got some scrap brass,
melted it in the Jr. High foundry & poured it into a sand mold. It
polished up nicely, and is still bolted to the side of my Mom's fireplace
40 years later. I have no idea how I got away with it, but it worked
great. The brass was mixed chunks from the Los Alamos surplus yard, and
could have been all sorts of alloys.

Doug White

As long as you melted with a crucible in a furnace, that would work fine,
and is commonly done. I mean, that's *how* it's done (unless the metal is
melted by cupola or induction furnace). This guy is asking about torch
melting by applying the torch directly to the metal. That is a recipe for
failure with brass.

Congrats on the nice fireplace tool bracket. Such projects are a pleasure to
have in our later years. I lost all my high school machine shop projects
when I was burglarized many years ago. Must have been one damned desperate
thief.

Harold