Technical products made out of rubber such as tires, hydraulic hoses, and hand rails are usually reinforced by brass-coated steel wires to improve their strength, persistence and dimensional stability. To meet the high mechanical requirements an excellent and durable adhesion between the rubber compound and the metallic reinforcing element is mandatory. As far as it is currently known, this is accomplished by the formation of a rough CuxS-ZnS interface, created during the sulfur vulcanization of the rubber [1]. Thus, adhesion is mainly achieved by mechanically interlocking of the cross-linked rubber polymers with this interface. The adhesion performance is, thereby, strongly influenced by the properties of the rubber mixture as well as the brass surface. For good adhesion the formed copper sulfur structures must be in an optimal size. If they are too small, no effective rubber-brass bonding appears, if they are too big they get brittle and may detach from the brass layer [2]. Due to the strong adhesive strength of the rubber on the wire, it is very difficult to access the adhesion interface directly. In this contribution we discuss the possibilities of the metathesis method, where the rubber is degraded by the reaction of a metal catalyst via the olefin metathesis. By optimization the reaction conditions, the rubber-metal interface can be exposed for detailed investigations using e.g. optical microscopy, focus variation microscopy and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. This method can be applied to natural rubber compounds but also to other double bond based rubber systems such as styrene butadiene rubber and nitrile butadiene rubber systems. Furthermore we will discuss the effect of most common additives such as carbon black, silica, cobalt salts, and resin systems. [1] W. J. van Ooij, RUBBER CHEM. TECHNOL. 52, 605 (1979). [2] T. Kretzschmar, F. Hofer, K. Hummel, KAUTSCH. GUMMI KUNSTST. 45, 1038 (1992).