Hi all

Today I tried melting brass for the first time. I had some nice heavy
brass padlocks around and so I dumped them into my 4" pipe crucible. After
2 hours and several pounds of charcoal the padlocks were orange but simply
the brass did not flow. I did not took the steel pieces apart since I'm
lazy and I expected to fish them out when the brass melted.
Is padlock brass the yellow brass novices are cautioned against? If so,
what would be a common scrap source for silicon bronze? Taps, hinges,
fittings, something?

regards,


Mongke