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Is rose/yellow brass color due to the lacquer or the metal?



 
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Robert P
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 1:21 pm    Post subject: Is rose/yellow brass color due to the lacquer or the metal? Reply with quote

If you see a horn that for example has a rose-colored bell and yellow valves, is the coloration due to the lacquer that's used or are the metals actually different colors?

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ldwoods
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 2:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am not an authority, but it has always been my understanding the color is due to the base metal, not any kind of shading of unique laquers.
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JayKosta
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 2:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You'd need to know the metallurgy of the brass alloy for the various pieces.
If there's a description that says something such as 'rose colored bell' that might indicate lacquer color rather than a particular brass alloy. If the description says 'xyz brass' that would imply the alloy.
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Dale Proctor
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 2:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lacquer (or whatever they use today) can be tinted to give a different hue to the metal, but generally, instruments are lacquered overall after they’re soldered together. It would be pretty tedious to lacquer different parts of an instrument different colors after it’s assembled, and you can’t lacquer parts of a horn before they’re soldered together. So…I’d say that flugelhorn has a bell made of gold brass, or possibly of rose brass..
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huntman10
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 4:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, as everyone says, the mix of copper and zminc. Some instruments actually have bronze, which is copper and tin.

Yellow brass is 70% copper and 30% zinc. Gold brass about 80/20 and rose brass 85 to 90% copper.

Aside from appearance, the differences change some of the tone and focus of the sound, and can also resist red rot better than yellow brass.
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shofarguy
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 4:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yellow brass, as used by instrument companies, is 70% copper and 30% zinc. It depends on the foundry, as to what is in the alloy. Byron Autrey felt that Staub had something like 5% nickel in the brass stock they used to make the original Destino horns. He felt there was a stiffness to the horns response and suspected there had to be more than just copper and zinc.

Rose brass is often sited as an 85/15 percent ratio. Red brass might be 90/10, or something close to that.

Another Byron tidbit came from his study of Besson instruments from the late 19th and early 20th century. He said that the copper the French were mining at that time was more pure and could be formed with an alloy of 66/34% copper to zinc ratio. He felt this contributed to their legendary resonance, as it allowed the bells to be drawn to incredible thicknesses as thin as 0.009" (measured).
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Jerry
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
is the coloration due to the lacquer that's used or are the metals actually different colors

The metals actually different colors.
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OldSchoolEuph
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 5:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

French brass : roughly 64% copper
Yellow brass : roughly 70% copper
Gold brass : 75-80% copper
Rose brass : 80-85% copper
Red brass : 85-95% copper
Copper : >95% copper
Casing brass : French to yellow brass including some percentage lead
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TheGecko251
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:27 pm    Post subject: Re: Is rose/yellow brass color due to the lacquer or the met Reply with quote

Robert P wrote:
If you see a horn that for example has a rose-colored bell and yellow valves, is the coloration due to the lacquer that's used or are the metals actually different colors?

[/img]


could be either, most manufacturers' lacquer is clear so the color of the metal underneath is what you're seeing, but also some specialized manufacturers have options to color the lacquer. 90% of the time its probably just the color of the metal underneath tho
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