Capabilities

Brass casting

Wieland Chase is North America’s leading brass manufacturer and supplier of brass products. Brass casting is the method by which brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, is melted in a foundry and cast into various shapes to be used in manufacturing, fabrication, and machining. Brass casting is achieved in many different ways; however, continuous casting is our method.

Continuous casting is a process used in the manufacturing industry to cast a continuous length of uninterrupted metal. Molten metal is poured through a mold and while the casting takes the two-dimensional shape of the mold, its length is indeterminate. New metal is constantly supplied to the mold by the tundish at the rate needed to maintain the solidifying casting. The metal is cooled by a water bath jacket surrounding the mold. The long strands of metal can be cut and machined to the length needed for downstream production needs.

Copper alloy chips and solids are charged into the melting furnaces where required chemistry adjustments are made prior to casting. When the casting temperature is reached, logs are cast using direct chill, vertical semi-continuous casting and horizontal continuous casting methods. These logs are cut into billets and inspected prior to the hot extrusion operation. Brass has a high melting point and is best melted in an electric furnace. Brass cools quickly and the molten metal moves swiftly through the mold, all the while it does not completely solidify in the mold. The semi-finished slab is later extruded in the extrusion press.

With its beginnings starting in 1837, Wieland Chase continues to be the leading brass machining manufacturer and supplier of brass stock in North America. Our products include our signature leaded machinable alloy C360 and C377 as Blue Dot® Rods, and our lead-free machinable alloy C693 and C8785 ECO BRASS® under the Green Dot® Rod brand. Our C36000 brass comes in hexagon brass rod bars, brass round rods, brass square bars, and other shapes. We also produce low lead brass including C2745, C363, and C370. We also specialize in bronze machining with the production of ECO BRONZE® Ingot C8785 and offer our C69300 series which includes several shapes including hex bronze bars, round bronze rods and square bronze bars.