Hey guys I have a quick question. What is church bronze, a what is special about it and what are the advantages to having it. Also, where can you get a set made out of church bronze?

The only spinners I know who did anything in church bronze are RNT2 and Gary Animal. Don’t quote me on this I believe that Gary Cups are called guild metal (). From what I remember the finish is more muted gold like in appearance then shiny like brass…. That is what my Squatty Cups look like.

Somewhere at TMC, Bill Palmer has a post telling what the metal is.

Bruce

The best thing about church bronze to me was the way they sounded when you struck them with a wand.

Jeff

Jeff… The Squatty Cups I have don’t ring like one would hope for; the mouth bead is to tight to the Cup (does that make sense?).

The best Cups I have heard, ring-wise… are the Johnson Cups, they sound like little bells.

Bruce

I had the RNT2 Church Bronze Monti Cups and they were great.

Jeff

I have RNT2 Sisti church bronze and they are nice.  I prefer the bronze to brass but not sure why.  Tom and I have discussed his and both feel the same but neither of us can fathom it!

Johnson cups ring nicely but the Bennett cups ring wonderfully too, they are chrome plate over brass.

Bri

Bri… I think that the church bronze looks better then brass even when dirty; brass looks so yucky unless it is polished… at least that is how I feel.

Bruce

what specificly is it? What meakes it different from copper or brass?

Here is what I found at TMC regarding the metal….


Delrin® is the proprietary name for an acetal resin that is very strong. The Delrin® cups that RnT II puts out are extremely tough. They are CNC machined instead of being injection moulded.

I don't know whether "Gold Church Bronze" cups are gold plated. They probably aren't because church bronze, which is a yellow bronze alloy looks very "goldish." It's another of several alloys of bronze.

Very few items are made of pure copper. Most are made of red bronze, which is a bit sturdier. Pure copper is very malleable. So if you drop a pure copper cup, it is very likely to dent. Some bronzes are less prone to this. Copper, bronze and brass are all subject to "work hardening" when they are spun, so they must be annealed at various stages of the spinning process or they will develop stress cracks later.

Neither copper, brass, bronze or even silver are necessarily "better" than one another. It depends on what YOU like. How they maintain their luster depends on how you maintain the cups. If you have high acid content in your perspiration, they will patinize more quickly. If you wipe them off after performing, they will not patinize as quickly. Also, if you wax or oil them and wipe off the excess, they will patinize more slowly. Be careful with this on silver, though. Some oils have acids in them, such as citrus oil. This may discolor the surface of the silver.

so it is a mixture of brass and copper?

No. A mixture of brass and copper would be brass.

Copper is a pure element. It's not an alloy. It's just copper.

As mentioned before, copper is generally a fairly soft metal. It's suitable for drinking vessels, but it's not very good for things that need to be stiff and strong, such as knives and spears. To make copper stronger, a small amount of tin was added to the basic copper, forming a stiffer alloy which is called bronze. The earliest bronze dates back to about 4000 BC. Typical ratios of copper to tin in bronze would be in the neighborhood of 80% or so copper and 20% or so tin. Other metals such as phosphorus, lead and manganese can be added to bronze, as well. Bronze is typically reddish in color.

Brass is a mixture or alloy of copper and zinc. Brass tends to be more brittle than bronze. Brass also tends to have a yellowish color.

If you add a small amount of zinc to bronze, then the metal begins to turn yellow, and it becomes closer to what we call church bronze.

Church bronze is typically used for chalices and cups. It can also be used for candelabra in churches.

Most bells are made of bronze. Some are made of brass.

There are two things I should point out. One is that there is no absolute dividing line between bronze and brass. The other is that you can find all of this information on google.