Exploding Silver !

[Julian]

Last weekend i made a bail out a piece of 0.8 mm silver sheet. Bent it over and filed it into shape, but when i came to solder the end closed the whole thing shattered before the solder melted. :'(

Has any one else seen this before? I guess the sheet was about 6 or 7 years old but could that really be the cause.

Julian

[Goldsmith]

Sounds like a bad alloy, the age of the silver should make no difference. I am using silver pieces and left overs sections of sheet without having any problems, pieces that I have had in stock for 25 years or more.

James

[Julian]

Sounds like a bad alloy, the age of the silver should make no difference. I am using silver pieces and left overs sections of sheet without having any problems, pieces that I have had in stock for 25 years or more.

James


I buy all my silver from cookies +o( Perhaps i should anneal the rest of the sheet and see what happens

Julian

[Goldsmith]

I must admit that I have been supplied with bad rolled sheet in the past, accidents can happen in the bullion makers metal preparation and rolling departments, sometimes ingots get rolled to quickly so that the top and bottom surfaces spread and form a sandwich edge of two layers at the extremities, which is not obvious when cut into stock sheet sizes but they will split apart when heated and worked.

James

[Rob Taylor]

Hi Julian
You post is a little disconcerting. Did you attempt more than one bail? If you feel there is an issue with the metal, please let us have a sample back to get to our lab
rgds
Rob

[Julian]

Hi Julian
You post is a little disconcerting. Did you attempt more than one bail? If you feel there is an issue with the metal, please let us have a sample back to get to our lab
rgds
Rob

Rob,

Yes a did make another, but i used a different sheet the second time. I'll anneal the rest and see what happens and let you know. Thanks for the offer.

Julian