Zamak

In the early 1930s, Morris Ashby in Britain had licensed the New Jersey zamak alloy. The 99.99%-purity refluxer zinc was not available in Britain and so they acquired the right to manufacture the alloy using a locally-available electrolytically-refined zinc of 99.95% purity. This was given the name Mazak, partly to distinguish it from zamak and partly from the initials of Morris Ashby. In 1933, National Smelting licensed the refluxer patent with the intent of using it to produce 99.99% zinc in their plant at Avonmouth. ==Standards==

Zinc alloy chemical composition standards are defined per country by the standard listed below: Zamak goes by many different names based on standard and/or country: The short European designation code breaks down as follows (using ZL0430 as the example): It was originally designed for low volume sheet-metal-dies. It later gained popularity for making short-run injection-molding-dies. It is also less-commonly used for non-sparking tools and mandrels for metal-spinning. KS The KS alloy was developed for spin casting decorative parts. It has the same composition as zamak 2, except with more magnesium in order to produce finer grains and reduce the orange peel effect. ==Zamak 3==

Zamak 3 is the de facto standard for the zamak series of zinc alloys; all other zinc alloys are compared to this. Zamak 3 has the base composition for the zamak alloys (96% zinc, 4% aluminum). It has excellent castability and long term dimensional stability. More than 70% of all North American zinc die castings are made from zamak 3. ==Zamak 4==

Zamak 4 was developed for the Asian markets to reduce the effects of die-soldering while maintaining the ductility of zamak 3. This was achieved by using half the amount of copper from the zamak 5 composition. ==Zamak 5==

Zamak 5 has the same composition as zamak 3 with the addition of 1% copper in order to increase strength (by approximately 10%), hardness and corrosive resistance, but reduces ductility. It also has less dimensional accuracy. Zamak 5 is more commonly used in Europe. ==Zamak 7==

Zamak 7 has less magnesium than zamak 3 to increase fluidity and ductility, which is especially useful when casting thin wall components. In order to reduce inter-granular corrosion a small amount of nickel is added and impurities are more strictly controlled. ==Uses==

Common uses for zamak alloys include appliances, bathroom fixtures, die cast toys and automotive industry. Zamak alloys are also used in the manufacture of some firearms such as those from Hi-Point Firearms. In World War 2, zamak alloy buttplates were one of three variations common on Canadian and American-made .303 Lee Enfield rifles, particularly during mid-war production. ==See also==