BOLD AS BRASS OR BRASSED OFF

It would be interesting if perhaps on a very wet day, you spent five minutes looking around your house and noting down all the things made of brass. Your list would probably include candlesticks, ornamental electric light fitments, drawer handles, door knobs, and perhaps door knockers on your front door, which were sometimes cast in the shape of animal heads, of lions with rings in their mouths, foxes and tigers. Before you could make your list, you would know at once how to recognise brass. It is, in fact, the only golden yellow metal there is, except pure gold itself. One look around your church or cathedral will show many more artifacts made of brass. Candlesticks, and brass fittings on the ends of cords, brass light fittings, lecterns are to name but a few, and I know some would say, heavy brass fitments to large bibles and perhaps more importantly, in very many cathedrals, what are known as monumental brasses, which are pictures of famous people, drawn on sheet metal, and then let into the floor, or walls of the building. They are, of course, called "brasses" because the metal used is brass. Although many of these brasses are over 600 years old, the metal is often as good as ever. This shows that brass does not decay easily. It is true, brass is mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and elsewhere in the Bible, but the brass of these very early times was really copper, and not the brass we know today. In fact, brass is made by mixing two other metals together, and when this happens to any metal, it is called an alloy. Brass is an alloy, because it is obtained by mixing copper and zinc together, in a foundry. The copper is put into a crucible and heated; when it has almost melted, the zinc is added to it. More heat is applied, and when they both have melted thoroughly together, the brass is ready for pouring into prepared moulds. Usually the ratio is 70 parts copper to 30 parts zinc. This is why you never hear of a brass mine, as you do a tin or copper, silver or gold mine, because brass is made up of two metals heated together. Brass never rusts, as iron does, but it cannot be given a sharp edge, although it is a good conductor of electricity.

The newspapers today, speak of anti-tank guns, and this is special, because the shell cap fired by these guns is made of steel, a hard and tough form of iron, mixed with either tungsten or manganese, two metals which have existed in the earth's crust since the beginning of time. These two metals make the ordinary shell capable of punching holes through armour plate.

Other metals which we can think of as coming from the earth, are bronze, and indeed nickel, which contrary to many people's beliefs, is not an alloy, but is found as an ore in the ground, mainly from the United States and Canada. Nickel and steel are mixed together, however, to provide an extremely hard metal, for bullet-proof articles, and armour plating. It is also used for plating objects, and many of us can find spoons, jewellery, or knife handles, plated with nickel, which is polished to an extreme brightness. Thus nickel plating is a real metal dug from the ground, though not as rare as silver, and lacking some of its white lustre. Some nickel coins exist which are at least 200 years before the time of Christ. Nickel can stand up to all sorts of weather, whereas silver would flake off, like paper.

ROSEMARY GOULDING