In the future Fiona and I will be doing a bit more intricate work with silver and pewter. We are keen to make metal sheets and wire from salvaged silver and pewter where we can.
However, the photo above is how a stash of so called salvaged 925 silver chain, beads, findings etc (see photo below) turned out - very brassy!!! Obviously the silver hoard was anything but pure - there appeared to be quite a bit of brass in the mix - silver plate when the pieces were supposed to be solid silver!!! The brassy plate was just too hard to roll thinner.
Anyway back to the story. To aid us in metal sheet and wire making we have purchased a metal mould for creating metal plate and rods; and we have a rolling mill for creating the wire and rolling the plate into thinner sheets. See rolling mill below.
Following a a few photos of the testing process for both sheet and wire.
The pewter sheet and wire worked out well - you can see how a 2mm thick piece of pewter more than doubled in length when rolled to .9mm.
More attention is going to need to be applied to collecting and melting our silver!!!! Still we know we can do this.
what a great tool! ... Liz A
ReplyDelete(((Barry))) you should melt down that silver ladder I sent awhile back, it's sterling!
ReplyDeleteOh what fun you’re going to have with your new mill! Not to mention all of the marvelous new works to come!
ReplyDelete