Most engraved brass door knockers will live their lives outdoors.

Out in the elements a protective coating is needed to prevent the brass from oxidizing or tarnishing. This is the process that happens when oxygen and atmospheric gasses comes into contact with the surface of the brass.

Most manufacturers use a high quality clear lacquer to coat the brass and thus protect it.

When a brass door knocker is engraved the engraving process cuts into the surface of the metal. If it is lacquer coated the engraving will also cut through the coating exposing the metal behind it. The exposed metal in the engraved area will oxidize and tarnish in a short time.

An engraved door knocker should be lacquer coated after the engraving process. This seals the entire door knocker and prevents your investment from deteriorating prematurely.

At our Your Door Knocker studio we dip our products in high quality UV resistant clear lacquer as one of the last steps in the production process. This completely seals the door knocker and ensures a long life.

In normal use your brass door knocker should not require much attention.  It should just hang on your door looking good for many many years to come.

Occasionally a cleaning may be necessary.

Care should be taken if you attempt to clean your brass door knocker. Like the rest of your brass door hardware it will scratch easily. Most door hardware made of brass is lacquer coated to protect the brass from the elements. It is this lacquer coating that prevents the oxygen in the air from causing the brass to tarnish or oxidize.

Aggressive cleaning can damage this lacquer coating or even remove it entirely. Your brass hardware will tarnish rapidly without its lacquer coating to protect it.

The best cleaning method is to simply spray it off with a hose. This should also clean off the door it is mounted on.

If further cleaning is really necessary use only mild detergents and very soft cloth wipes. Gently wipe any dirt away with horizontal strokes across the door knocker.

If the lacquer is damaged it can usually be removed by soaking the door knocker in lacquer thinner. After the lacquer is removed you will need to polish the surface to get any dirt or tarnish off. You will have to be very careful to not damage any engraving that may be on the door knocker.

The problem you will face is finding a suitable lacquer to refinish the door knocker. Most spray products found in the discount stores and hardware stores will provide disappointing results.

In most cases a brass door knocker that has been purchased from us can be refinished in our studio for a very small handling and shipping charge if this is process is ever necessary.

In recent weeks we have been developing a new brass door knocker design in our small foundry. I have been directly involved with the entire process.

The first step was to design the door knocker we wanted to make. In this case it is an inverted urn design about 7-1/2″ tall. Being engravers we wanted 2 large areas where we could do our personalization work.

When we completed our design the pattern had to be made. This is the piece that will be duplicated in the molding process. We carved a detailed door knocker out of wood to serve this purpose. Two pieces were required, one for the clapper and one for the door knocker body.

When the pattern is completed we can make our sand mold. This involves packing sand very tightly into a two part box with the pattern in the middle. When the box is opened and the pattern taken out it leaves a cavity where it was for us to pour our brass into.

Of all the foundry experiences the most exhilarating is the actual pouring of the brass into the mold.  Our furnace heats the brass until it melts into a liquid. Once it is liquid it must be heated more to get it hot enough to pour completely filling the cavity left by our pattern in the sand.

At this point the crucible containing our hot brass is lifted out of the furnace using a special handle and gloves. We are talking really hot here. Nearly 2000F.

With great care we pour our liquid brass into the mold.

Now we must wait until the brass solidifies in the mold. When that is done we can break away the sand and there is our part.

If all went well there will be no flow marks or voids in the casting and it can be taken to the finishing department where it will be ground and polished into a finished part.

Over the years I have worked on thousands of brass door knockers. This was the first time I experienced the actual birth of one.

It is hard to describe all this in words. We have added some pictures to the site starting at this page

click here for foundry page

from there you can follow the links at the bottom of the page.

A brass door knocker is not just another accessory on your door. It is part of the image that your house conveys.

When a person approaches the entrance to your home what impression would you like them to have. That of a building or that of a home. It is the accessories that makes the difference. The overall appearance creates the image of a family home.

The entrance is an important component of the initial image of your home.

There are many accessories that are available for the entrances. Some are truly necessary such as the handles latches and hinges. Others include  address markers or numbers for identification and kick plates to protect and add beauty to the door.

Other accessories serve multiple purposes such as our engraved brass door knockers. They have the basic purpose of providing a place to knock on the door without marking it or damaging your knuckles with the blows.

They may also be engraved with the family name, street address or simply a welcome message.

The brass door knocker can also be combined with other accessories such as the eye viewer. A true safety item in many neighborhoods. The eye viewer allows one to see who is outside the door without actually opening it. Some brass door knocker designs combine an eye viewer with the door knocker itself. This makes a nice combination.

Most brass door knockers are available in a variety of finishes to match the existing hardware on your door. This makes an attractive complete appearance for your door.

The brass door knocker is truly a multi purpose device and a nice addition to the home.

I have been an engraver for over two decades now. I have worked on many levels, doing work for jewelry stores, operating our own stores and now more recently, on the internet.

I have performed hand engraving, pantograph engraving and computer operated engraving.

I take great pride  in the performance of my trade.

Over the years many objects have been brought to me with the hopes of having them engraved. Some items were purchased as gifts other for personal use. Some just wanted their item marked for identification.

Most of the time I preferred not to attempt to engrave the item.

The truth is, most things are not engraveable.  Engraving involves stresses and forces placed on the surface of the item that includes cutting and the moving of metal. Inexpensive, plated items will not withstand these actions. Neither will many synthetic materials and plastics. Sometimes you can get away with it but the results are typically not good.

Before an item can be engraved it must be fixtured securely into the machine or a vise so it will not move during the engraving process. Every item is different and requires special tooling to securely hold it in place. If it moves during the engraving process it is possible that it can never be realigned perfectly. Sometimes the tooling itself will mark the object where it is gripped.

Many inexpensive items are made of zinc and plated to look like gold. This works well for many purposes but not for engraving.  Most engraving methods will damage and loosen the plating from the zinc. Many times the plating will separate and peel from the zinc during the engraving process. This can make a customer who does not understand this very angry.

Engraving is expensive, and for good reason. The equipment used is extremely expensive and a great deal of skill is involved.

Many engravers will not engrave on anything they do not sell. This is not because they want to sell more of their products. The reason is that it is just not worth the risk.

The brass door knocker selection offered by Your-Door-Knocker is produced in foundries by the sand casting method. This method involves pouring molten brass into a mold made of sand and letting it cool to form a casting.

In our foundry we produce small parts and door knocker components in this manner. We describe this operation at these pages of our site. At The Foundry

This ancient technology is used in many industries producing a large variety of items. Everything from high precision machined parts to plumbing components to ornamental items such as our brass door knockers.

Casting of brass using the sand casting method is an important element in the manufacturing industry. I doubt that any one of us has not had need or use for a cast brass item at some time or another.

Not all of our door knockers are produced in our foundry. It is small and designed for prototyping and very small production runs. Our larger quantities are produced in production foundries that are set up for this type of production.

The foundry operation can be quite dangerous if not done properly. The handling of 1800F to 2000F molten brass is not for the meek of heart. A foundry operation either large or small must be an extremely safety conscience work place.

With proper planning and careful manufacturing methods the foundry like most manufacturing processes can be done by skilled personnel using good equipment.

There are other methods used today to produce some brass door knocker styles but the good old sand casting method is still one of the best.

Our experience in the foundry making our brass door knocker didn’t start in the foundry at all. As a matter of fact there is a lot of work to be done before the foundry work can even begin. First of all we need something to cast. We call this the pattern.

It seems that our brass door knocker must first be made out of wood. At least the pattern for it will be.

Our completed door knocker requires two castings. One casting for the body and another for the clapper. We will need a pattern for each casting.

Before we can make a pattern we need to come up with a design. Drawing it out on paper is good, a computer drawing program is better. We need to create a scale drawing that shows what the final product will look like. Every detail that we can imagine should be included in the drawing. This will help us find problems before we begin.

When the drawing is completed we can trace the outline on a piece of wood to be cut out sort of like a silhouette. The rest of the details will need to be carved and filed in until an exact 3-D replica of the part is achieved.

The pattern becomes one of the most important components in the casting process. All the rest of the work creating a quality product depends a good properly made pattern.

It must be strong enough to stand the mold making process. It must be shaped with the proper tapers to exit the mold during preparation. There are a lot of factors that go into getting the pattern just right. It may take a couple trial castings to get all the bugs worked out.

When the pattern is ready we can progress to the next step in making our brass door knocker. Taking it to the mold shop where the sand mold will be made. That is the subject of the next post coming soon.

The posts have been scarce lately as I have been spending a good deal of time in the foundry with the development of our latest brass door knocker design.

Two years ago I would have never imagined actually creating our own castings. Until now we have sourced our castings from production foundries many located in another country. This created many logistical problems as well as long lead times. It would take months from the time of an order until they actually arrived here.

The foundry we are developing is small by most standards. We are building it for the sole purpose of making some of our brass door knockers, brass door plates and associated small hardware. This will not be a large production shop but instead a very specialized work area with a specific purpose. The development and production of high quality unique Your-Door-Knocker products. The brass door knocker we are currently working on will be the first one produced here.

The process of creating a brass door knocker from scratch involves much more than the hot furnace melting metal that most people picture in their minds eye. In reality it is a four step process that includes pattern development, mold making, casting and finally finishing. Each step is quite involved and necessary to the development of a quality product.

This is not new technology. The process itself is over 2000 years old but it is still as exciting to this old man as each sunrise. There is nothing quite like the exhilaration of pouring 1800 degree molten metal into a sand mold to form a casting.

Over the next series of posts I will attempt to describe the process of building a brass door knocker from scratch.

I am finding this process very exciting as I hope you will too.

Brass is an excellent material for door knockers.

Brass is a nonferrous metal with good electrical and thermal properties. It also has excellent strength and corrosion resistance. Being an alloy it is available in many varieties. Not all brasses can make good brass door knockers though.

Brass is not a natural element, it is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn). Other elements such as lead, nickel and tin may be added to the mix to achieve certain properties. Depending on the final product to be made the mixture making up the brass can vary. Some brass parts need to be strong while some may need to be resistant to salt water and still others may simply need to look good. The recipe can be changed to accommodate each of theses requirements.

Sometimes the changes cannot be detected just by looking and other times differences are quite apparent. Some of the changes affect the color of the brass which can vary from silver to gold to red depending on the mixture.

A door knocker needs to be made from a bright yellow brass that casts and polishes well. It must also be machinable and engraveable.

The desired properties are achieved by keeping the copper content around 67%-72%, the zinc content around 24%-29% with 1%-3% each of tin and lead. As a general rule the higher the copper and lower the zinc contents, the softer and easier to machine the brass is.

The addition of a small amount of lead makes the brass easier to machine. Tin is added to increase strength and corrosion resistance. Tin will also help prevent the zinc from leaching out of the brass over time.

A quality finished product requires a quality “recipe” for the brass. There are many specifications written for brass that may apply to different industries. Standards are written by such organizations as ASTM, SAE, CDA and MILITARY to name a few.

The elements that make up the brass are mixed in a foundry. They are melted together at temperatures that vary around 1800F – 1950F. When molten the liquid mixture can be poured into a mold to form the product or poured into an ingot for storage for later use. Most product foundries purchase the brass already mixed in ingot form. The ingot is then remelted and poured into a mold to make a product.

After the brass is molded into a shape it is called a casting. The casting is then polished, finished and machined into the completed brass door knocker.

In this day of computer driven engraving systems, your engraver can offer many font choices.

When it comes to engraved door knockers, some fonts will be better than others.

Most engravers would use the diamond drag method of engraving for a brass door knocker. This method works by dragging a precision sharpened diamond tipped stylus across the surface of the door knocker to scratch in a pattern . Brass is a relatively soft metal so this method works extremely well. It creates crisp lines with which to form letters.

Some fonts use a single line to make the letter while others use 3 or more side by side to make the letter bolder.

When engraving a door knocker you really want the engraving to show up from a short distance. For this reason the bolder the letter is the easier it is to read. Boldness is achieved by using more lines to form the letter. A one line font uses just one scratch per thickness of the letter. This is great for small letters on jewelry and such but not so good for larger items like door knockers. Here we need at least a two line font.

Most two line fonts form outlines of the letters. The letter is hollow, that is there is no fill. For many door knockers this works very well.

Three or more line fonts use the additional lines to fill in the letters thus making the letters stand out more.

Font choices usually include the standard Helvetica, Roman, English and Script fonts as well as a selection of ornamental fonts. You will want to make your choice based on the style of the door knocker and the effect you wish to create. You can see our Your-Door-Knocker font choices here.

Font choice has a big effect on engraved door knockers. Be sure to take a little time when picking our your font.