Forged Brass:

Earlier I blogged about the history of a door knob and I found the info from madehow.com. Reading more through the post, I found it interesting what else was listed, such as design, materials, manufacturing process, and byproducts/waste. So I thought maybe I could touch base on forged brass €“ what it is and the process. Majority of the door knobs nowadays are mainly made of different types of metal, like brass for example is the most common type.  The material usually comes as a rod or billet of the applicable diameter and is cut to the appropriate length. And there are several different processes in making a door knob, like for example casting €“ where the metal is poured into a mold, but brass door knobs are commonly forged. Forging is a more efficient and economical process where the heated up metal is forced into shaped dies under super high pressure and can produce reliability, quality and strength €“ up to 250% stronger than the casting. This is how the process of forging goes down: First the billet (or a small piece of metal) is heated to 1,400 degrees F in a furnace so that it can be softened. Then the billet is placed in a specially designed set of steel dies. A press applies really high pressure to force the billet into the die. And that€™s when it takes the shape of a door knob. After the door knob is removed from the press, it€™s then cooled, trimmed to the size, and cleaned to remove heat scale (which is a thin layer of discoloration after extreme heating and cooling). And then comes the Surface preparation and coating of the door knob or finishing steps of the door knob and I kind of want to talk about that later, because it could be a post in its own. Forgings are designed to an almost exact final part shape and that means little waste is created compared to the other processes. Forging minimizes rejects by the consistency, composition, structure, and dimensions from piece to piece.