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At Diehl Brass Solutions, our core expertise lies in the independent production of high-quality copper alloys – from our own foundry to precise further processing. Thanks to our fully integrated manufacturing processes – casting, extrusion, and drawing – we produce semi-finished brass and copper products with exceptional material quality and dimensional accuracy, meeting the highest standards across a wide range of industries.
Our product portfolio includes more than 60 specialized copper alloys, featuring innovative lead-free and low-lead materials specifically developed for drinking water applications. Among these are our high-performance alloys eZeebrass and Cuphin, setting new benchmarks in sustainability, safety, and efficiency.
We offer a broad range of semi-finished products – from rods and tubes to customized profiles, manufactured using the latest state-of-the-art technology and in compliance with the highest quality standards. Our alloys are characterized by outstanding corrosion resistance, excellent formability, and optimal machinability, making them ideal for demanding applications in the sanitary, automotive, mechanical engineering, and other industrial sectors.
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Diehl Brass Solutions produces brass semi-finished products using state-of-the-art, fully automated production equipment. In addition, we employ custom-developed and in-house-built tools and machinery to ensure the highest precision and quality.
Our process begins with the casting of high-performance copper and brass alloys, laying the foundation for semi-finished products with exceptional material properties and dimensional accuracy.
The materials used for brass production are added to the melting furnace either as scrap metal or as high-purity primary metal. Precise composition and dosing of these raw materials ensure consistently high alloy quality, forming the foundation for semi-finished products with optimal mechanical properties and excellent dimensional accuracy.
Rod extrusion is a forming process used to manufacture rods, tubes, and profiles from metallic materials, ensuring precise dimensions and excellent surface quality.
Draw benches are used for the further processing of coiled extruded rods. During cold forming, both the mechanical properties and the tight dimensional tolerances are precisely adjusted, resulting in high-quality semi-finished products with excellent accuracy.
The logistics center features a high-bay warehouse designed for the storage and handling of brass semi-finished products. Integrated material handling systems ensure efficient organization, transport, and delivery throughout the entire production and supply chain.
CUPHIN is a lead-free copper material specifically developed for the requirements of drinking water installations. This material not only meets current legal standards, but also addresses safety, hygiene, and health-related considerations.
Thanks to its chemical composition, CUPHIN is fully recyclable, supporting the growing demand for sustainable and environmentally friendly materials.
With the eZee material range, Diehl Brass Solutions provides a future-ready alternative to conventional brass. eZeebrass represents a lead-free standard material with excellent machinability, eZeeDZR offers additional resistance to dezincification in accordance with DIN EN ISO 6509, and eZeeCrimp has been specially developed for press-fit and crimp applications. Together, the eZee alloys form the basis for modern, environmentally responsible product solutions.
Following the EcoVadis Silver Medal in 2024, Diehl Brass Solutions reached a major milestone in 2025: for the first time, the company was awarded the EcoVadis Gold Medal, placing it among the top 5% of companies evaluated worldwide.
The assessment covered environmental performance, labor and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement. This achievement demonstrates our strong commitment to responsible business practices and climate-friendly production, showing that we are continuously exceeding our sustainability goals step by step.
At the 2023 Copper Symposium in Jena, Diehl Brass Solutions introduced eZeebrass, a novel lead-free standard brass. This material combines excellent machinability and processing properties with a copper content comparable to traditional leaded brass, yet is completely lead-free.
An innovative chip-breaking mechanism ensures short, easily automated chips, increasing both efficiency and sustainability. As a fully recyclable copper material, eZeebrass conserves valuable resources and sets the new standard on the path toward a lead-free future.
In 2021, the Diehl Metall Messing business unit became the independent company Diehl Brass Solutions Stiftung & Co. KG. This step allowed Diehl to respond to dynamic market conditions and establish a foundation for sustainable growth and strategic development.
The long-standing site in Röthenbach a.d. Pegnitz remains, as does the company’s clear focus: to provide customers worldwide with high-quality and innovative brass solutions while remaining a reliable partner for long-term business relationships.
In 2014, at the Röthenbach site, Diehl Metall Messing commissioned a combined drawing line. Two years later, a new tube press with a pressing force of over 25 mega-newtons was installed.
These investments not only enable the energy-efficient production of tubes and hollow rods, but also provide enhanced workplace safety and ergonomic comfort for employees.
Between 2004 and 2009, Diehl Metall made significant investments at the Röthenbach site. In 2005, a new tube press was installed, followed in 2009 by the commissioning of a new vertical casting plant. These major investments strengthened the company’s competitive position in the brass industry.
At the turn of the millennium, the long-established corporate structure of the group was adapted to a decentralized management model. From then on, Diehl consisted of four divisions: Metall, Controls, Devices, and VA Systems. In 2001, the Devices division was integrated into Diehl VA Systems.
As part of this restructuring, Röthenbach became the headquarters of the Diehl Metall division.
In 1998, at the Röthenbach site, a new indirect extrusion press was inaugurated by Bavarian Prime Minister Dr. Edmund Stoiber.
To serve the Chinese market, a cutting and service center was established in Shenzhen, China, in 1999.
In the mid-1980s, environmental protection at the Röthenbach site was systematically expanded. A heat recovery system was installed in the foundry to save energy, and wastewater neutralization as well as a detoxification system for neutralized chrome pickling were implemented.
These capital-intensive measures not only reduce energy consumption and costs, but in 2000 the Metall division was also recognized with the European Union Environmental Audit for its high ecological standards at the Röthenbach site.
In 1979, the Metall division developed dezincification-resistant brass alloys 410 and 420. This innovation proved forward-looking, as it prevents zinc from being leached from brass in increasingly soft and chlorinated water, which would otherwise cause corrosion.
Dezincification-resistant brass has since been increasingly used in sanitary and heating applications, becoming a standard in these industries.
In the 1970s, the core production areas at Diehl were further expanded. As part of this development, the drop forging plant in Röthenbach was extended by 5,500 m², and an additional tube press with a pressing force of 2,350 tons was installed.
In the foundry, a dust collection system was built, capturing two to three tons of dust per working day. The casting capacity was increased with the construction of a continuous Demag strand casting plant. In 1977, the so-called Schumag Hall was erected.
Through the acquisition of an automotive supplier in São Paulo (later Diehl do Brasil Metalúrgica), Diehl was able to consolidate its growing semi-finished product activities in the American market and quickly expand production locally.
Over the years, Diehl do Brasil has become an important Brazilian producer of pressed parts and a key supplier for automotive and transmission manufacturers across the American continent.
In the early 1960s, Diehl invested in additional facilities to expand its semi-finished product activities. In 1961, the planning and construction of a new tube plant with a 1,600-ton press took place. In 1962, the first continuous twin-strand casting plant for brass, with an annual capacity of 47,000 tons, was commissioned.
Even in the 1950s, semi-finished product production remained a core business for Diehl. To offer customers rods, tubes, forged parts, as well as wires and strips from a single source, Diehl acquired the Sundwiger Brass Plant in 1958.
In 1951, the plant facilities were expanded with a 3,500-ton press, which at the time was the largest of its kind in Germany. Diehl could proudly claim to be pioneering in the field of continuous casting.
New manufacturing processes and changing demand patterns in the post-war years required a restructuring of production facilities towards high-quality copper and brass products.
As part of this realignment, Plant 1 was decommissioned, and comparatively large-scale production facilities with modern machining centers were established in Röthenbach. The main customers during these formative years were the automotive and sanitary industries.
After the end of the war, Diehl faced unprecedented challenges. For a period, dismantling and reconstruction took place simultaneously.
As temporary work, employees initially carried out repair work on railway wagons and produced everyday items such as ladles and pots by remelting light metal scrap.
In 1939, the company was classified as a war-essential enterprise. In 1944, air raids destroyed or severely damaged almost all buildings at the Röthenbach site.
Limited expansion possibilities at Plant 1 made it necessary to establish a new casting and pressing plant (Plant 3) with a drop forging facility in Röthenbach, just outside Nuremberg. In 1938, a 3,500-ton press was commissioned here, which at the time was the largest of its kind in Germany.
After the end of World War I, there was strong demand for faucets and water pipes. By 1920, the company had acquired a 300-ton extrusion and tube press to produce semi-finished materials for pressed parts as well as tubes for the pencil industry.
Additionally, the Reichsbahn became a major customer, and with the installation of another 1,200-ton press, the production of rods and tubes was further expanded.
The outbreak of World War I prompted Diehl to shift from producing handcrafted consumer goods to the casting of brass rods. These rods were then pressed into raw parts for ammunition production in the company’s own drop forging facility.
Industrial manufacturing began in 1917 with the construction of a metalworks (Plant 1) at the Nordostbahnhof in Nuremberg, establishing Diehl as a semi-finished products manufacturer in Franconia.
After his apprenticeship and journeyman years, Heinrich Diehl moved to Nuremberg, which was increasingly developing into a center of the metalworking industry. With craftsmanship, innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit, he founded his own “Artistic Model Workshop” in Schweiggerstraße, Nuremberg in 1902.
Initially, the small art foundry focused on the creation of models for stoves, artistic and architectural castings, and epitaphs (gravestones).
The story begins in the 19th century, a period of rapid industrial progress. Industrialization fundamentally changed people’s lives. The young Heinrich Diehl, the son of a farmer, was fascinated by the possibilities offered by metal. He decided to undertake an apprenticeship in metalworking, taking the first step toward the company’s history and future success.
High-performance brass for the requirements of the automotive industry – today and tomorrow.
High-performance brass for the automotive industry includes materials from the BMOTION alloy group and lead-free special brasses. These stand for:
These high-performance brasses prove their worth particularly where brass parts are exposed to frictional movements and thus wear stress, where toughness, surface quality, thermal conductivity, and wear resistance are required.
Special brasses are created by adding suitable elements such as aluminum, manganese, silicon, nickel, and tin. This effectively influences the material properties of brass, resulting in improved alloys that are tailored to the respective application.
Depending on the intended use, we therefore develop innovative copper alloys with advantageous combinations of properties, enabling us to meet increasingly complex requirements:
Special brasses are used in a wide range of applications in the automotive sector as well as in heating and sanitary engineering.
Drinking water is our most important nourishment—a source of life—and therefore the basis of our health. For this reason, increasingly stringent requirements are being imposed worldwide on materials that come into contact with drinking water.
The correct selection of suitable materials for drinking water installations is therefore extremely important. Technical and economic aspects play a major role here, but hygienic and health aspects are particularly important. The following materials are specially designed to meet the requirements of the drinking water sector:
Dezincification-resistant brasses have proven themselves excellently in recent years and decades. Their dezincification resistance is outstanding, even in aggressive waters. A special alloy composition and a complex heat treatment achieve the desired dezincification-resistant material properties.
Due to their properties, dezincification-resistant brasses are particularly suitable for use in drinking water installations. Diehl Brass Solutions offers a special alloy variant for pressed and drawn products, for machining, and as a starting material for forged parts.
Seamless drawn tubes made from the MS63 alloy group are lead-free and, thanks to their versatile properties, are used in particular in installation and sanitary engineering.
Semi-finished products in MS63 quality also guarantee excellent surface quality, even with thin wall thicknesses. The most commonly used alloy for the production of thin-walled tubes is CuZn37. With a copper content of 63 percent, this alloy is particularly well suited for cold forming. It is very easy to polish, is characterized by its ease of electroplating, and is corrosion-resistant in a normal atmosphere – an easy-to-process, problem-free material.
Special brasses are created by adding suitable elements such as aluminum, manganese, silicon, nickel, and tin. This effectively influences the material properties of brass, resulting in improved alloys that are tailored to the respective application.
Depending on the intended use, we therefore develop innovative copper alloys with advantageous combinations of properties, enabling us to meet increasingly complex requirements:
Our raw materials form the basis for functioning value chains. Brass semi-finished products in drilling and turning quality consist of copper-zinc alloys with a small amount of added lead. This gives the brass excellent machinability and makes it ideal for the manufacture of precision turned and forged parts. Depending on the alloy and manufacturing process, our material is either soft, hard, malleable, high-strength, wear-resistant, and corrosion-resistant.
Brass in drilling and turning quality can be found in almost all areas of life, from heating and building services engineering to automotive engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical and plant engineering.
