Mike, Brass is a shade too hard. Yes indeed, save those brass pins! Like Pappy said, you can make hilts, pommels, inlays, etc. out of them. You can melt them down, and cast things out of them also.
I believe the Egyptians, and Roman, used whatever they had before they got the bronze formula down. I think bronze is a mixture of copper, zinc and tin, so it is quite a bit harder than brass. It can take an edge that is quite sharp. On The History channel they showed the tombs of the Han Dynasty, where they found bronze sword blades, that will shave you ! You can alter the color and softness of brass by adding more, or less of the zinc to the copper. There was a jewelry brass that was popular for a short while, I think it was called Merlin's gold, that looked like gold, and did not tarnish quite as bad as regular brass, and it had more zinc in it.
I was thinking about trying to melt some copper with some brass, and try to see if I could get a recipe that would be harder than pure copper, but not as hard as brass. I will have to give that a go some time. But yeah, don't throw those pins away. Uh.....the post office has these boxes, that if it will fit, you pay a flat rate.......
When I used to go to the range, I would pick up discarded brass that was Berdan primed, and keep them to melt down, and cast stuff with. Just be sure that the primer has been fired, or better yet remove them, before you melt them!!! The amount of primer powder, in a large rifle, shell is the same amount, and the same composition, that is in your airbag explosive capsule. It can be very dangerous. I read an article in a reloading book, about a guy that was annealing his rifle shells, before resizing them, and there was a shell with a live primer in it, and it went off, and he felt the primer hit his chest, and noticed a small amount of blood on his chest, but did not see the primer on the floor. It started to hurt a little more. He went in to have it checked out, and he now has a primer next to his heart !
The early ancestors did quite amazing feats of craftsmanship, and artistry with hammer stones, and antlers, long before copper. Just look at some of the coral points, and blades, that are so thin, and perfect!
I still use copper, but I would like to progress to totally primitive tools, just so I could be able to do like our ancestors did. I would still look for the easiest way though......
Wayne
