My two cents worth: Munch brakes were used by racers and their use/manufacture preceded actual production of the Mammoth.The Munch brake is made of Electron a magnesium/aluminum alloy. It can be welded because I have a Munch front brake that had several of the stiffening vanes in the hub welded. They looked to me to be an attempt to fix an initial casting problem but given some other cracks in the hub I had my local machinist reverse engineer the hub in Aluminum ( which doesn't crack as easily) for my Munch for safety reasons. It cost about 3,000 dollars, though. Mike Kron in Germany used to make new Munch stuff and he virtually had any part you needed. Great quality but fairly expensive. Munch brakes look cool, are very effective and are an instant conversation starter!