The tops sheet here is brass.

In later years I have moved away from brass, much preferring to work primarily with copper and steel.  I do use some brass in leaf sculptures or in other sculptures as accents.

Brass is an alloy with the base metal being copper and different percentages of zinc added.

Just as in copper, brass comes in many different thicknesses and shapes.  I only use sheet brass.  I prefer .to work with Brass Sheet .020" Thick (24 Gauge).  Thinner than this it is too easy to burn through the brass.

For me brass is more difficult to work with than copper.  This is probably because I don't work with it as much as copper.

Much of what you can do with copper in the way of forming can be done with brass.

Brass can be ordered in "soft", "half hard" and "hard".  My preference is is the "half hard". 

The reference to hardening of brass would be if you tap the "hard" it as a ring to it, the "half hard", not so much of a ring and the "soft" is like a dull thud.

The only time that I have used the "soft" is when I bought a short left over coil at a metals warehouse. 

99% of what I do with brass is for cutting out the brass maple leaves. 

Brass can be finished much like copper.  It can be wire brushed, buffed, sanded and polished.  For the brass maple leaves I remove the sooty edges with a cloth or my thumbs before using a clear spray finish. 

Brass is very popular in home and office furniture and accessories. 

Back to table of contents