Tuesday, May 10, 2011

How to solder cracks in antique pitcher


Sometimes when you align cracks, they pop into place. What a nice sound! Otherwise it is easing them inside and then going outside. On this Pitcher, I am going to use easy hard solder, for 2 reasons, it is coin silver, and will crack again easily if a low melting soft solder is used, and it is an important piece(important in the antique world means expensive)  If the metal is smooth, you can use hard wooden burnishers to ease into place. I make shaped wooden burnishers out of different sized dowels. Prepare for soldering. I am assuming that the readers, know how to solder. If not, let me know, and I will do a video on different ways to solder.
This kind of project is for an advanced Smith. I would suggest starting out with smaller pieces or even scrapped pieces for practice. You also must be certain of what material you are working with, is it really silver, is it coin, or something maddening; britainia.