What is Brass?

Brass is a kind of metal. It’s made from a mixture (the technical term is “alloy”) of copper and zinc. It has a golden appearance, is harder than pure metals and resists corrosion.

Here are some everyday things sometimes made from brass. Can you name them? What are they for? (Answers below).

brass-water-tap--78529_01
Candle sticks
brass screw
brass_sitting_cat_door_knocker
letterbox

 

old threepence

Our copper coins used to be made from brass, and there’s an old Yorkshire saying “where there’s muck, there’s brass!” meaning the job might be dirty, but it pays money!”.

Brass is a good metal for making brass musical instruments because it can be worked easily into the required shape, it resists corrosion (i.e. it doesn’t rust) and it is widely available and affordable.

Other metals are used for making “brass” instruments e.g. solid silver or gold plating (a very thin gold layer over another metal like silver or brass) but brass is the most common.

Silver cornet

Brass – a brief history

Brass is similar to another metal bronze which is also made from copper but with tin instead of zinc.

Copper by itself is very soft making it useful for some things like copper pipes to carry water, but not for making tools like hammers or weapons like swords. But add a little tin to the copper and you get a much harder metal called bronze. This discovery ushered in the Bronze Age.

As early as 3000 B.C. (that’s 5000 years ago) early Syrians knew how to blend copper with tin to make bronze. Tin and zinc (a primary component of brass) are remarkably similar in terms of colour and behaviour, and often zinc would be used mistakenly, creating brass.

Around 20 B.C onwards, metalworkers around the Mediterranean were able to tell the difference between zinc and tin ores, and began to blend zinc with copper to create coins, and other rudimentary household items.

Fast forward to 1746 when the German scientist, Andreas Sigismund Margraff determined the properties of zinc.

Soon after this, the process of mixing copper and zinc was created and brass was formally patented in England in 1781.

(source: Righton Blackburns website)

Picture answers

The brass items above are: a water tap; candlesticks; a screw for fixing things in place; a cat door knocker; a letterbox in a front door; and a door pull.

Can you find anything in your home or school made of brass?

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