Soldering silverplate
Keith Hearn
to have a nice, silver goblet, with stones mounted on it.
Unfortunately, sterling goblets, are rather expensive, even the
very plain ones.
I am seriously considering getting a (much cheaper) silverplate
goblet, but I'm wondering about it's ability to withstand
soldering. I'll be using bezel mounts for the stones, so I'll need
to silver solder them in place.
Is it possible to solder to silverplate, or will it destroy the
plating? Anyone have any experience?
If soldering to plate won't work, anyone have any ideas that might
work?
Keith
James Foster x2912
|>
|> I am seriously considering getting a (much cheaper) silverplate
|> goblet, but I'm wondering about it's ability to withstand
|> soldering. I'll be using bezel mounts for the stones, so I'll need
|> to silver solder them in place.
|>
|> Is it possible to solder to silverplate, or will it destroy the
|> plating? Anyone have any experience?
|>
|> If soldering to plate won't work, anyone have any ideas that might
|> work?
|>
You will probably toast the plating if you silver solder. You can probably
soft solder without any damage if you use a little care. I don't know
what your mounts will look like, but get as good a fit to the goblet
surface as possible, don't overheat, use a good liquid flux applied with
a pipe cleaner around the edge of the bezel, and apply the solder from
the inside, just until it flows evenly and completely around the edge.
Use a hand dishwashing soap and water to clean off the flux, rinse well,
and use silver polish on any discolored areas around the soldering. Iron
wire is good for binding parts down for soft soldering since solder won't,
in general, stick to it, though in this application you're probably far
enough from the solder area that most anything will do.
MarcK3
>Is it possible to solder to silverplate, or will
>it destroy the plating?
It is not so much a problem os destroying the plat but melting the base
metal under the plate. Many plated oblects are cast in pewter then plated
with the silver. the pewter melts at a significantly lower temp that
silver. If the cup is made of brass or steel then plated the underlying
metal will over heat then melt the silver plate. Good silver plate is a
combination of plating nickel over the base metal then plating the silver
over that. When heated the nickel and silver will aloy into a low melting
point metal and just burn off of the base metal.
You might be able to use a tin/silver or lead/silver solder to attach the
bezel cups to the cup but be careful not to get any lead solder near the
rim.
Another alternitive is to take a class where they will teach you to smith
your own solid silver goblet. Look for a comunity arts center, junor
collage, or local crafts men to teach you.
I teach such classes in Bloomington Indiana.
Marc K
mar...@aol.com