Johan,

There are hundreds of varieties of brass, with a very wide range of properties. Some of them have a tensile strength higher than mild steel; some are better than others for casting. A quick Google search threw up this useful looking resource:

**LINK**

I'm sure a more careful search would throw up many other informative sources.

Hope that may help.

David

I made a gib strip out of brass I had bought to make free-hobbed gears from. It was so hard the first gear came out one tooth short, and the second one tooth extra, I gave up and got some engraving brass hich was fine for gears.

As I say the hard brass went into a gib strip – it was amazingly difficult stuff to work, but I was able to preserve the mirror finish on the bearing surface, which I then finished by flatting it with very fine abrasive paper. the result was silky smooth in use and has shownno visible wear.

Neil

If it looks like brass but is d@mn hard it could well be Aluminium Bronze. The colour is almost the same. I once gave up drilling a 3 mm hole in this stuff (yes I used a good drill…)

Greetings, Hansrudolf

While clearing up in the w/shop I found a few old nozzles from oxy-acetaline and oxy-propane cutters. They look like bronze of some sort, does anyone know what? IE will they be any use for ,say, bearing bushes ? Or do I just weigh em in?

Thanks Les, I've cleaned one up and you are right, of course, the burning does put a nice colour on tho'. They'll come in for something.