Hand polishing your Silver

Patience Pays

How to make tools for rounding an antique enameled vase. How to round the vessel with the tools, I made.

What a journey.  Completely taken apart to remove dents and then back together.  Whew!

Just about had it with this project.  It has taken so long....I did figure out what was holding in the bakelite.  Very old epoxy. I did not know that epoxy was made in the 1940's.  I think, I have learned more about bakelite than I really wanted to know.  One of the bracelets was very dented and I could not  go in with tools. I had to take it completely apart and put back together.

Today was a huge success. One is done. The other soon to follow.

 I made a few tools for the repair. This brass mandrel and a long thin steel burnisher  for pushing out from inside.  The secret to removing the bakelite from the silver, was a formula that the deYoung Museum, Objects Specialist, shared with me.  She saved me hours of tedious work.  Acetone plus Ethanol; put it on cotton balls,  then stuff the end holes of the bracelet with the cotton soaked in the mixture.
Cover with saran wrap.  I used plastic wrap. Waited half hour, (was afraid to wait longer, for fear the bakelite would be effected.) Then I was able to ease the pieces out, one by one. For extra measures of safety, I covered the surface of bakelite with a soft wax. Not sure this is necessary.

I know this all sounds so boring, but one day, this info may come in handy. And you will not need to do the research I had to do.  Next hours of steel burnishing to remove deep scratches and dents with a flat headed highly polished hammer, over shapes of steel or brass.

My website in QR Code. I love this new way of translating. A Smart phone can read this and you go directly to my website.

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.

Duck Tape is your friend

When I work on antique silver, I protect it with duck tape. I use leather on my bench pen to protect the surface of the antique. I have found over the years that no matter how steady or how sure I am of my hands, they will slip. So I keep my mistakes to a minimum. Did I say mistakes?

Guardian

I restored a sculpture for a family, who named it "guardian."   While it was in my studio, I understood why it was named guardian and why it was part of their family. 
I decided to make a sculpture with the same feel.
My guardian stands about 40 inches high and is about 8 inches wide made of Slate,Plexiglas, Brass, rutilated quartz.

Armor at Home

Armor finally at home.

Took months to arrange for the new floors, and the corner for the Steel Man. His final finish was Renaissance Wax.

Mystery Solved

I found residue of investment. I believe they used investment to protect the bakelite. Filling with investment letting solidify and then soldering with hard solder, then putting into water to dissolve investment, so bracelet remains hollow and light weight. That is my plan now for repairs.  Will let you know if it works.
NO! this is the wrong way, continue on to other post to show how it is done. I was looking at it the wrong way.  There is no way to hard solder and protect Bakelite.  You must remove and then fix bracelet and then reset bakelite.

Rare Bracelet Ballesteros Bracelet

Did you ever wonder how these were made?
The next picture will show. The real mystery was how they used hard solder to set Bakelite(a synthetic resin). I found out this week.

This an example of Paul De Lamerie. and a very good reason to keep lead out of the studio if possible.(and ofcouse for your own health) To me it is interesting how silver seems to be softer over time. I have a theory, the more a silver object is handled by human hands the softer it becomes. When you have a museum quality object to work upon, it is best to do the least amount of work on it as possible. Thinking this through is important. No need to rush on a very valuable piece.

Assortment of gloves for work, I use for polishing, bench work, hammer work, repairing antique pieces with lead. Which brings up the subject of lead. Lead work must be kept separate from other work, especially gold and silver. I have different soldering blocks for lead filled pieces and for the gold work, and for the silver work. I keep everything separate, including files and soldering tools. I learned the hard way. Contaminating a gold ring and ruining it with particles of lead, I thought I had cleaned up. I would suggest being very careful, in what you accept for work. If you can avoid antiques with weighted parts, do so. All Sheffield Plate is weighted by lead. Plated work is often weighted by lead. When they first invented Electroplating or as we know it today as plating,  the companies went wild making things that looked very elaborate and expensive, but were really plate filled with lead. An illusion of opulence, I call it.

Here are more examples of the tools.

Here is an idea, that I wish I had come up with along time ago.  I use the dapping tools for removing dents in vessels.  I turned brass stock on lathe and tapped for insert screws to hold dapping tools in place.  I made each end the exact diameter of the stock of the dapping tools. This is a way to make a tool that will go into very deep vessels. I also use the tools for special curves in my creative work.

OK, here it is restored. The tea service that went through two walls in a tornado.
The tray turned out well. I forgot to take a picture before I sent off to the owner.
The teapot was the hardest, because of the spout.
How did I do it? Annealing and burnishing over and over. I also made some new tools that fit exactly the curves of the pots.

This has to be the most unusual job I have had so far. This is a tea service that survived a tornado. It and its owner flew through the wall of the dining room and then through the wall of the next house. It and its owner both survived!
Will show picture of restored pieces in December.
I have it close to finished. The teapot is going slower than expected.

This suit of armor is a copy of a suit of armor made in the early 19th century or late 18th.
It needed cleaning, dent removal and new small parts. Not an easy task but interesting project.

Who would have thought that there were pipes with sterling silver to be repaired.
Well there are. These are repaired now.

My friend Jean came by and took pictures for the article that will be in Silver Magazine. This one is me raising on my steel stakes.
Raising is a technique of hammering that creates form.
I am working on a sculptural form that has no function. First time... I have made something in Silver that has no function.