Brass Metal Casting - Mannar, Kerala
Following are the tools and raw materials required for brass metal casting:
• Hammer: Iron hammers are used in chiseling for engraving and finishing purposes, breaking big chunks of raw materials including metals and clay. The wooden hammer is used for beating and smoothen the wax before it is applied on the mold.
• Files: Used for smoothening the irregular surface and edges of any surface.
• Blower: Used to provide enough air in the furnace while melting the wax or metals in the crucible.
• Crucible: Crucibles are mud pots, used to heat and melt the specific metals.
• Pincers: It is a gripping tool used for holding crucibles and is very much similar to a normal plier that its handles are very long comparatively.
• Drilling Machine: It is a hand operated electric device used for making holes on metal.
• Lathe: Machine tool that rotates the workpiece on its axis to perform various operations such as cutting, drilling, facing, turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object with symmetry about an axis of rotation.
• Chisels: It is a hand held flat blade, small ones are used for shaping the edges and bigger ones are used with hammer for engraving designs.
• Narayam: It is made up of iron and has wooden handle. It is a small wooden piece on which smaller molds are made by hands and after making molds these are kept in a pit for waxing. Then it works as the central axle while turning the mold in that pit.
• Achukol: It is also made from the wood of Poovan tree. It is big in size and is used for making the bigger molds manually.
• Arippa: It is nothing but the sieve used to filter the finely powdered sand.
• Barzing Machine: It is used for joining different pieces of the brass using a flame and a filler material.
• Chopper: It is a special heavy weight knife used for chopping jute sacks into smaller pieces which are added into clay to provide fibrous structure to the mold and thus making it strong to withstand against the heat while melting the wax. This tool is made up of iron.
• Kada Irumbu: It is a tool used for smoothening the wax applied on the mold.
• Spade: Used to remove mud or material from a place.
• Roller Stone: It is a hand operated grinder used for grinding the baked-broken mold clay pieces into powder.
• Compass: It is used for marking the measurements and making perfect circle wherever needed.
• Thadi: It is used for flattening the wax.
• Mattam: 'L' shaped perpendicular ruler used for measuring perpendicularity of two surfaces.
• Cutting and Grinding Blades: It used to cut and grind the unwanted pieces from the edges and surfaces of the product.
• Sander Blade: It is used to smooth the rough areas of a product.
• Honeybee Wax: It is used for making the model and can be collected and reused.
• Clay: It is used to make molds and can be recycled.
• Rubber Tree Wood and Coconut Husk: It is used as fuel to generate heat for casting process.
• Bell Metal: It is a heavy metal having the density of 8.7 gm/cm3 and a very high melting point of 1500˙C. It is the mixture of copper and tin in the ratio of 78% and 22% respectively. It gives a resonating sound because the atoms in the crystals of the alloy can interchange their positions when we struck the bell.
• Brass: It is the alloy of copper and zinc in ratio of 60% and 40% respectively. Its melting point is 900˙C and the density is 8.4 g/cm3.
• Bronze: It is the mixture of copper, zinc and tin in ratio of 85%, 5% and 5% respectively. It is reddish in color having higher melting point of 950˙C than brass because of the presence of tin. Its density is 8.6 gm/cm3 and it gives a clear ringing sound.
• Copper: It is a metal with reddish orange color and melting point of 1084˙C. It's highly malleable, soft and ductile. It's a good conductor of electricity. Its density is 8.9 gm/cm3.
• Zinc: It is lustrous metal silvery grey in color and have a melting point of 919˙C. Its density is 7.14gm/cm3.
• Tin: It is a very hard in nature, silvery white metal and have melting point of 231˙C. Its density is 7.36gm/cm3.
