silver soldering

Do you know what the metal is under the silver plate?

Silver solder is generally for quite high temperature brazing and may not be suitable.

dont go anywhere near it with silver solder or you will surely destroy the lot! Im assuming its for ornamental purposes and not a rare antique, in which case it needs glueing back together - use JB weld. Otherwise it will require expensive professional jewellery repair.

Christopher, silver soldering will certainly destroy any silver plate, personally I would use tin solder, not tinmans which is generally 60/40 tin/lead--use tin. You can get this at any plumbers merchant all you need is lead free plumbers solder, not pure tin but close enough. My guess the base metal will be copper or brass ?

I would also avoid the plumber flux this is quite aggressive better to use a resin flux and wash of as soon as you have completed the job.

just my thoughts cheers John

Christopher,

I have a 1930's beer mug made from stainless and I knocked the handle off, rather than ruin the highly polished finish I decide to araldite it and its been a success.

Martin P

To soft solder stainless steel, use phosphoric acid (jenolite) as a flux, ordinary tin / lead solder and wash off afterwards.

Hi Chris.

Silver soldering will destroy the silver plating. You have two options.

Glue it on or

use soft solder.

To maintain the appearance, use an alloy that gives a good colour match on the silver plate. Ordinary tin-lead solders will produce a grey/black joint. Use a silver tin alloy, 2207, that melts at 225 deg C. It is readily available as a flux cored wire in 1m lengths. It can be posted to you ex stock for £5.39. You don't even have to leave the house!

http://www.cupalloys.co.uk/soft-solders/

What the eye can't see .................!

PS It works equally well on stainless steel.

Edited By CuP Alloys 1 on 31/10/2016 08:51:07

Edited By CuP Alloys 1 on 31/10/2016 08:54:47

Edited By CuP Alloys 1 on 31/10/2016 08:57:28

Is the samovar of any value? If not glue it with an epoxy. If it is get advice from a professional jeweller. Silver solder is a no-no for the reasons already given. Glue will work but how do you remove it when the next repair has to be made? Low temperature solder, lead/tin etc, is the correct repair but probably requires quite a lot of skill to get it right.

JA