Bronze Round

Our bronze bar is suited for many applications. It’s ideal as stock for cutting or machining parts like bearings, bushes and thrust washers. It’s suitability for these uses means that it is often called ‘bearing bronze’, and is often found in heavy equipment and other industrial and mechanical applications.

SAE660 bronze bar is ideal for producing spur, bevel, helical and worm gears where loads and stresses are moderate.

Bronze bar is also a good basis for making hydraulic fittings such as unions, sealing ringsa and valves.

Its resistance to dezincification and general corrosion makes items made from bronze round bar highly suitable for components and fittings such as pumps and valves in marine applications or industrial ones handling saltwater or brine.

Our bronze round bar is made to the SAE660 standard. This is a versatile and widely used commercial leaded bronze. Our SAE660 round bar bronze consists of 81-85% copper, 6.0-8.0% lead, approximately 7.0% tin and small amounts of zinc and nickel.

Bronze has excellent machineability and good hardness. It also boasts excellent load capacity for its weight. SAE660 is one of the most wear-resistant bronze alloys.

SAE660 bronze is classified as ‘self-lubricating’. Under load, the lead in the alloy wears before the copper or tin, creating a thin film cutting friction between moving parts and internally in the metal. As well as cutting down mechanical wear, this offers good sliding and dry running properties, requiring little to no extra lubrication in many key uses.

Bronze doesn’t readily corrode, forming only a superficial layer of oxide that protects the underlying metal and is easily removed by cleaning and polishing. The chemical composition of SAE660 bronze round bar resists dezincification in saltwater.