soldering pewter
Colette Harrington
repairing a pewter candelabra. I have found a reference that indicates that
pewter can be soldered. What type of solder would be used for pewter and
how would you go about soldering it? Or, is there a good book someone can
refer me to? My only experience is with silver and a little gold.
Thanks.
Nikki
adam
Ask yourself what's a solder that will melt at a lowwr temp than
pewter. I suggest that /welding/ pewter would be a better way to
hot-join it. It's quite difficult; use little rice-sized pelletes
of pewter as filler material, and dab often with a wet sponge to
prevent the whole piece heating up. You need the joint edges
hottest - in fact molten - to weld.
Brian
--
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Wooding
use a special solder (low-melting tin-lead-bismuth) and flux (1 part
hydrochloric acid to 18 parts glycerine) for it. Ordinary plumber's or
tinman's solder cannot be used 'cos the pewter melts before the solder.
The difference in melting points between pewter and solder is very small, so
its best to practice first or you will end up with a blob of pewter. I use a
bushy flame that is waved over the area to be soldered.
--
Gary Wooding
Colette Harrington <Col...@Eurekanet.com> wrote in message
news:qo0kgt4qf1tbgar06...@4ax.com...
Peter W. Rowe
As others have already mentioned, pewter can be soldered. Not, however, with
silver or gold "hard" solders, and as also has been mentioned, ordinary tin/lead
solders are not all suitable either, as they melt too close to the pewter (or
for some tin/lead ratios, higher than the pewter) Pewter is mostly tin, after
all, so solders must melt below this.
I'd disagree with Brian's assesment that welding pewter is difficult. Compared
to welding some other metals, it's easy, since pewter conducts heat poorly, and
with a small enough torch flame, it's surprisingly easy to control. Use a poorly
fitted seam with a substantial (like a millimeter or so) gap, position tiny
chips (as already mentioned by Brian, rice size is good) on the seam, and heat
just the chips till they slump into the seam. The secret about welding pewter
is that pewter does not work harden. In fact, it even gets softer as it's
worked. So you then, after melting the chips into the seam to get a rough and
crude looking weld bead, can easily gently planish (hammer, with a small, highly
polished hammer) the weld bead back down into the parent metal. With a little
practice, doing this and then lightly cleaning up the surface with a file and
some emery can lead to an absolutely invisible seam that's as strong as the
parent metal. It does take some practice, and for best results, works best with
metal of decent thickness, I'd guess about a millimeter or more in thickness.
And you need a shape where you can gently work/hammer a surface without greatly
distorting the thing. Highly decorated, chased, or ornate pewter ware may be
rather hard to repair this way.
In that case, soldering is appropriate. Like welding, the trick is that pewter
conducts heat poorly. so you must be very careful not to keep the torch in any
one place too long, as you can accidently melt through the pewter if your're
careless or unlucky. The easiest solders to use are the low melting
tin/silver/etc alloys made more for low temp jewelry repair work than for
electronics or the like. My favorite brand for pewter is "Stay-Brite" solder,
and it's matching flux, which is also a general good all around soft soldering
flux for any of the soft solders, including ordinary tin/lead types. Stay-Brite
is strong, the right color for pewter, and unlike lead containing solders, does
as it says, and stays the bright color you finish it too (like pewter does),
instead of quickly dulling and looking lousy. For very delicate pewter repairs
where even the heat needed for stay brite (around 400 somthing, F, lower than
pewter, but not by all that much) is too risky, then try TIX solder, with it's
flux. It melts in the 250 (F) range, or something like that, but is a poorer
match to the look and properties of pewter. It's slightly harder and whiter,
and won't patina the same.
Before soldering your candelabra, be sure it's all metal. Some candlesticks, in
both pewter and silver (and other metals) are filled, sometimes with plaster
(upon which you can solder the pewter) but often with rosin or pitch (on which
you cannot solder safely) If filled with a rosin or pitch or the like, repair
becomes much more difficult and complex to do well, as the filler must be
removed, at least from the immediate area of the repair, even with the low
melting point of, say, TIX solder.
Both TIX and Stay-Brite are widely available through most jewelry supplies
dealers in the United States, and I'd guess, worldwide. I've seen stay-brite as
well, in some welding supply companies too.
HTH
Peter Rowe