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Zamak

brand of zinc alloys

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ145352
Source-derived summary

ZAMAK (or Zamac, formerly trademarked as MAZAK) is a family of alloys with a base metal of zinc and alloying elements of aluminum, magnesium, and copper.

Zamak alloys are part of the zinc aluminum alloy family; they are distinguished from the other ZA alloys because of their constant 4% aluminum composition.

The name zamak is an acronym of the German names for the metals of which the alloys are composed: Zink (zinc), Aluminium, Magnesium, and Kupfer (copper). The New Jersey Zinc Company developed zamak alloys in 1929.

The most common zamak alloy is zamak 3. Besides that, zamak 2, zamak 5, and zamak 7 are also commercially used. These alloys are most commonly die-cast. Zamak alloys (particularly #3 and #5) are frequently used in the spin-casting industry.

A large problem with early zinc-die-casting materials was zinc pest, owing to impurities in the alloys. Zamak avoided this by the use of 99.99% pure zinc metal, produced by New Jersey Zinc's use of a refluxer as part of the refining-process.

Editorial summary

“Zamak” enters the record as brand of zinc alloys. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Zamak, brand and zinc can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1929—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Zamak, brand and zinc.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Zamak” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Zamak, brand and zinc provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q145352. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1929.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Zamak”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Zamak primary sources, Zamak archive and Zamak research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Zamak” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.