The Encyclopedia of Founding

Twelve hundred entries from the golden age of cast metal — how bells are founded, why brass is not bronze, what a cupola melts and a core withstands — by Simpson Bolland, the trade's great teacher.

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Statuary-bronze

A bronze composed of copper 9 and tin 1 is sometimes employed for statuary, but large statues are seldom cast of these two metals alone. For this reason it would be more correct to call the several alloys statuary brass. A brass used by the Egyptians consisted of brass 2, copper 1. Grecian and Roman, brass was an alloy of brass 2, copper 1, silver 1/20, lead 1/10. The French sculptor Kellar, 1669, used copper 326.43, tin 25.35, zinc 4.21, lead 1. Modern alloys are composed chiefly of copper 2, brass 1. For general artistic purposes more zinc and tin are added, as they answer as well, are more easily worked, and are cheaper. See STATUE-FOUNDING.

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