Brass & Bronze
Brass is a material that is trapped in a cultural time warp. Think of brass and you don’t think of modern aesthetics or materials that fulfil specific needs in contemporary life. Instead, the metal with a colour of warm brown sugar suggests an ancient time, where the acoustic properties of cartridge brass were utilized to make a huge range of musical instruments, from bells to trumpets. Like silver, its oxidation and subsequent need to be polished also creates satisfying rituals around the use of this metal.
Straightforward brass is approximately 65 per cent copper with no more than 40 per cent zinc. Like many other metals, brass is not a single material but a vast family, each with differing properties. Some of the brasses in ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access