Brass rods are solid, straight preforms that are used as billets and blanks. They are fabricated and shaped to form finished products in metalworking facilities. These rods are composed of a popular copper alloy containing about 30% zinc and have a similar finish and color to gold.
Related Categories
Brass rods are fabricated by the extrusion process to form thin, solid shapes with oval, round, square, flat, hexagonal or octagonal profiles. The addition of zinc increases its strength properties, while retaining copper's malleability, electrical and thermal conductivity and chemical/corrosion resistance. Brass is a yellow-gold color, and the more zinc added, the lighter the color. Because of its aesthetic value, brass in the form of rods are often used as decorative accents and in products like lighting and architectural details. Compared to other preform rods, brass rods are easily formed and machined, which reduces cycle times and allows the machinery to operate at higher speeds, producing more parts per hour than other metals. Brass preforms in the shape of rods are used to manufacture many different products within the architectural, automotive, lighting, building construction, electrical, hardware, industrial machinery, naval and marine industries. Products like gears, propellers, pipes, stairwell rods, valves and camera components are all formed from brass rods.
Since copper alloys exhibit such high malleability, brass is easily formed and shaped by many different metal fabrication processes. Most brass rods are extruded, a process that heats the metal and forces it through a mold with a profile of the desired product. They may also be drawn, hot stamped, laser cut, etched, cold formed or bent into many differently shaped parts and products. They are generally between 0.75 and 3.5 inches in diameter, and are cut to any length. All exhibit uniform thickness and are not polished or cleaned until after they have been formed into finished products. Heat treatments like annealing result in different tempers, or hardness. Many of these fabrication processes result in a large amount of excess, leftover material. However, brass is easily recycled and the waste is simply reused to fabricate other brass rods and products. Thin rods are often extruded to make brass wire, while very thick rods are needed for the deep drawing process. Brass with a larger diameter is able to retain higher volume and is capable of stretching far without fracturing or cracking. Drawn brass products are usually between 30 to 50% the diameter of the original blank.
