Music is a key ingredient of human evolution. Like science and politics, it’s something we, humans, are bound to discover and develop no matter how many times we disappear and reemerge in the Earth’s lifecycle. Throughout history, you’ll find music playing a vital role in the formation and preservation of traditions, such as rituals and festivities, as well as the establishment of domain and exhibition of power.

Before our ancestors learned to create music with their voice, they were already using instruments that produce sound to communicate with each other. Later they used the same instruments to create sound that entertain rather than just send signal. They experimented on a vast array of materials, including wood, bone, and animal hives to produce louder sound and a greater variety of tunes. This desire for better music has remained insatiable to this day so much so that new musical instruments arise from every generation.

A Revolutionary Moment

Until the end of the Paleolithic Era, all musical instruments are made from organic materials. Thanks to the discovery of metal and to the blacksmiths who explored them, we’ve managed to expand the resources we use to create musical instruments. As a result, we’ve also covered multiple levels of the sound spectrum, which explains why we have so many musical genres and styles today.

Just between the Copper Age and the Iron Age, the evolution of musical instruments had already come a long way. One thing hasn’t changed since then, though—most metallic musical instruments are made of brass. While many other metals have been used for making musical instruments, brass seems to always steal the spotlight. In fact, there’s an entire family of musical instruments called “brass instruments”.

The Brass Family

Musical instruments are classified according to their body structure, operation, and the sound they create. The type of material they are made of isn’t really considered of great importance at least by those who don’t understand its impact on the quality of sound produced by the instruments. The brass family, for instance, refers to musical instruments that produce sounds of different pitches by buzzing the lips together into their mouthpiece. It just so happens that all these instruments are mostly made of brass.

The brass family consists of five major instruments, each of which produces a different kind of sound. Trumpet and cornet are the smallest in the family and produce high-pitch sound. Slightly larger than them is the French horn, which has a low-pitch sound. Trombone, like the French horn, is a bass instrument, but it uses a slide to change pitches instead of valves or keys. Another key member of the family is the baritone, which is considered a hybrid of trumpet and tuba. Lastly, the largest of the family and produces the lowest tone is the tuba.

What is brass?

Copper is one of the first metals discovered and exploited by man. Ancient artifacts, including primitive working tools and accessories, made of this metal that have survived to this day are a proof of that. For over 5,000 years, copper, in its pure form, had fueled the earliest industries until bronze was discovered. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. It became more popular than copper to a point that an entire era was named after it.

Then another popular copper alloy came along by accident about 3,500 years later. Early metallurgists discovered this metal when they were extracting copper from zinc-rich ore. They weren’t able to separate copper from other contaminants but not from zinc, so instead of producing pure copper, they produced a metal that’s a little bit harder, more malleable, and less pliant than bronze. They called it brass.

Why is brass used for musical instruments?

As previously mentioned, there’s a bunch of musical instruments out there that are made mainly of brass. Manufacturers of these new and used brass musical instruments claim that brass produces the best acoustics. However, many argue that other materials, such as silver, bronze, and even plastic are capable of producing the same quality of sound brass produces. So what sets brass apart from other materials and why are musical instruments made of brass?

An experiment conducted by Richard Smith, the owner of Smith Watkins, a prominent maker of musical instruments, has revealed that there’s a plethora of factors that influence the quality of sound a musical instrument produces, including the shape and dimension of every component. Materials, as Smith puts it, are just the icing at the top. Arguably though, certain conditions have to be met to achieve and maintain the right shape and dimension needed to create quality sound, and these conditions are directly influenced by the material used to make the instrument.

Unlike other materials, brass used for musical instruments is extremely malleable. Meaning, it can be stretched, hammered, or rolled into thin sheets or plates without breaking. It’s also very easy to form into tubes, which make up most brass and woodwind instruments. Plus, brass has a close resemblance to gold, giving musical instruments added elegance to their appearance.

Of course, to produce the highest quality musical instruments from brass, you have to make sure that your materials come from the right sources. When it comes to copper alloys and other metal supplies, only trust copper and brass suppliers that have been around for a long time, such as Rotax Metals. They have the best foundries and they use the latest technology available in their manufacturing processes.

Sources:

https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0708/roncone-0708.html

Ever wondered how the images and texts on coins are made? Or perhaps the print on some of the items in the rare books and manuscripts section in your library? Those are the work of a process called engraving, which involves the incision of intricate designs on a hard, usually flat surface that serves as either an impression or the output itself. Metals are the most commonly used material for this application thanks to their rigidity and durability.

A Brief History

Engraving has been practiced as early as the beginning of the first millennium B.C.E. as evidenced by the designs of jewelry that dates to that period, which predominantly consist of shallow grooves on surfaces. Before artisans of the ancient times learned the art of engraving, they first used more traditional methods, such as lost-wax casting and chasing, to create designs on jewelry pieces.

In lost-wax casting and chasing, the designs are made by casting metal instead of engraving it, hence the name. A model is made out of wax, clay, or any moldable material. Then a mold made of a rigid outer layer and a softer inner one made of the original wax model. Molten wax is again poured into the mold and swished around to achieve an even coating on the surface of the mold. When the mold is smooth enough, the parting line or flashing where the pieces of the mold came together are slowly chased. Several other processes follow until an output is obtained.

While this method is still vastly practiced in modern-day metalworking, engraving into metal has become a more popular alternative since its discovery in the first century B.C.E. at least in cutting decorative figures on metal and glass surfaces. Products of engraving continued to appear for over 400 years since then but production eventually stalled sometime in the fifth century.

During the Middle Ages, goldsmiths in Europe started using engraving to decorate metalwork and print impressions of their designs for record-keeping purposes. This gave birth to the practice of producing artistic images on paper using engraved copper printing plates. Engraving became the main technique used for reproducing artworks until the advent of photography in the late 1800s.

Intaglio vs. Relief

Printing techniques can be classified according to which section of the matrix (the mold used to cast text and images on an object’s surface) the design is engraved and holds the ink. A technique is called intaglio printing if the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. It’s called relief printing if the protruding section of the matrix is the one that holds the ink.

The recessed area on the matrix can be created either by etching or by engraving. In etching, the metal plate to be turned into a matrix is pre-covered with an acid-resistant coating. The design or image is engraved on the coating to expose the metal surface. Acid is then methodically applied on the exposed area of the metal to corrode it until the desired design appears. In engraving, no corrosive substance is involved. The design or its negative is manually engraved on the surface of the metal plate using a burin.

How to Engrave Metal

The first step to engraving brass, copper, and other malleable and ductile metals is knowing the different tools you can use and understanding how they work. You should also know which types of metal are ideal for engraving or simply, which ones your tools can cut comfortably. The main tool used by engravers to cut metal engraving designs is called burin or graver. This tool is generally made of steel or other alloys that are harder than the metal plate to be cut. Those that do engrave metal pieces may find some sections of their material inaccessible in which case they employ engraving machines to help them out.

Burins come in different shapes and sizes, each of which produces different kinds of lines. Depending on the intricacy of the design you would like to cut on your metal piece, you might need several types of gravers. As for you metal piece, you have to make sure that it’s soft enough for the tools and machines you’re going to use. Otherwise, your graver might break. If the point of your burin breaks even on a microscopic level, it will become hard to control. Fortunately, there’s an array of metals that you can engrave, including silver, nickel, steel, brass, gold, and even titanium.

Most metal engraving how to tips you’ll find online make the process look so easy but in truth, it takes skills and creativity to actually engrave designs with both accuracy and precision. Even with the aid of automatic hand-pieces that only require controlled push, the odds of applying excessive pressure is too high for those who don’t have enough training and experience.

Apart from knowing how to do metal engraving, you must also know how to choose your metal plate. When it comes to that, a different set of skills and experience is required. Thankfully, if you go to prominent copper and brass suppliers like Rotax Metals, you’ll get all the help you need from metal experts in order to pick the perfect metal for your project. In their catalog you’ll find an entire section of metals that are suitable for engraving. They can even help you identify the metals that might damage your tools.

Sources:

https://www.ehow.com/how_4843464_engrave-metal.html