Birmingham brass, 70 / 30.
Seventy parts copper, thirty parts zinc. Sand-cast at the workshop. The alloy that built the Birmingham trade.
Every piece poured at our workshop is sand-cast in solid 70/30 brass — seventy parts copper to thirty parts zinc, with trace tin and lead for casting fluidity. This is the brass alloy specified for Georgian door furniture, for nineteenth-century shop fittings, and for the Birmingham brass trade the city has practised since 1740.
We source the alloy from a single UK foundry milled to our specification, with a feedstock of more than 80% recycled brass from UK sources. We do not blend with cheaper zinc-heavy alternatives. We do not plate. What you receive is the brass that came out of the sand mould.
Why 70 / 30
The 70/30 ratio is what gives Birmingham brass its colour and its weight. Higher zinc content makes a brass that is lighter, paler, and more brittle — the kind of brass used in mass-market hardware to keep costs down. The 70/30 brass is denser, deeper in colour, more workable under the file, and develops a more interesting patina with age. It also takes a chased mark cleanly, which matters because every Winfield & Turner piece carries the cipher on the back.
Sand-casting
Every piece is sand-cast — a process unchanged in its essentials since the Birmingham foundries of the 1740s. A hand-carved master pattern is pressed into damp sand. The pattern is removed, leaving a cavity. Molten brass at 1,000°C fills the cavity. After an hour of cooling, the casting is broken out of the sand and the pattern is pressed again for the next pour.
Sand-casting leaves a fine surface texture that machine-pressed brass does not have — a softness in the surface that the hand can feel even after polishing. It is also one of the few casting methods that survives at the small workshop scale; the alternative (investment casting) requires capital scale we do not need.
The patina
Brass is a living material. It reacts with the air, with moisture, with the salts on the human hand. Left bare (our Polished Unlacquered finish), it begins to oxidise from the first day. The metal darkens where it is not touched and brightens where it is, recording over months and years the topography of a kitchen's daily use. This is the point.
Aged Brass arrives pre-patinated; Satin Brass is lacquered against patina. The choice between the three is the choice between living, settled, and sealed.
Recycled, recyclable
Brass is one of the most recycled metals on earth. Our feedstock is more than 80% post-consumer recycled brass. Off-cuts, turnings, and filings from the workshop return to the same UK foundry as feedstock for next month's pour. The piece you fit in 2026 can, in principle, be melted and re-cast in 2126 as something else entirely — though we hope it stays where you put it.
For technical specifications, see the spec sheets in the trade portal.
