Brass patented a technique for the first industrial scale distillation of metallic zinc known as "distillation per descencum" or "the English process." This local zinc was used in speltering and allowed greater control over the zinc content of brass and the production of high-zinc copper alloys which would have been difficult or impossible to produce using cementation, for use in expensive objects such as scientific instruments, clocks, brass buttons and costume jewellery. However Champion continued to use the cheaper calamine cementation method to produce lower-zinc brass and the archaeological remains of bee-hive shaped cementation furnaces have been identified at his works
Ampco Metal into the production of aluminium bronze alloys as sand castings, forgings and centrifugal castings. The company was renamed "AMPCO METAL" in 1930, by which time it had built itself a reputation as a reliable producer of high quality alloys. The Second World War strongly increased the demand for copper-based alloys and industrial bronzes, especially in the field of aeronautics. By 1944, manufacturing operations had grown from 100 to 2,500 employees, and every American airplane carried AMPCO METAL parts somewhere in its structure—in its engines, landing gear, propellers or airframe. In the marine environment, AMPCO METAL propellers were manufactured for landing