Saying Hello and seeking help on silverware/flatware jewelry

[Lesly Oliver]

I'm new here, thanks. I make a bit of home crafted jewelry and trying my hand at jewelry from flatware / cutlery. But - how do you drill holes in this stuff. I've gotten some nice silverware, I keep breaking it when I heat it to try and bend and can't seem to drill a hole through it with my flexshaft. Are there areas here where I could read and see how to heat silverware to bend, like the tines on a fork without breaking it off and how to drill holes in this stuff. Thanks everyone.

[Dennis]

I get the impression that what you are using might be plated and not solid sterling.

However to bend silver you have to anneal it first. That means heating to just visible red and then quenching. For a sharp bend, you have to score it too with a saw and angled files.

To drill it, make a dent with a centre punch or a round burr first. Then if you have a new 1.00mm diameter drill, use that first and progress to a larger size if required. Make sure your motor is not in reverse.

If you itend to make lots of holes in the future, you might have to splash out on a mini bench drill, such as the Proxxon from Cookson. Dennis.

[CJ57]

Hi Lesly, welcome
Dennis is probably right about plated silver . If you are lucky enough to have solid then there are laws n the U.K. ( often broken) about turning it into something other than its original use. It's been discussed on here a few times so a search might help if that's the case.
The Proxxon bench drill is a great piece of kit if you intend to drill a lot, I love mine!

[Sandra]

I went through a 'turning flatware to jewellery' stage a couple years ago. I discovered silver-plated flatware is not equal! Some were easier to work with than others depending what was under the surface of the silver plate. The problem for me was not knowing what the material was. And once you cut into a piece of flatware you've pretty much spoiled the set. I attempted using a torch to bend tines of a fork over and over again and ruined two perfectly good sets of silver plate flatware - but to heat it hot enough to bend - the silver plate would usually get ruined. I've seen special flatware bending tools on websites but never bothered buying one. After giving up on fork-bending I started piercing spoons, which if patient enough can work. It's so much harder to pierce plated silver though and I broke many blades. Knife blades are hollow, so they can be fun to create things with, I made a batch of knife-blade bell pendants and gave them as gifts and you can use your broken fork tines for the bell clapper :) . Solid silver flatware would be a dream to work with, but I didn't know there were laws against it! I never had problems drilling holes in the flatware, I have a Dremel workstation but it's probably not as good as the others mentioned here.

10695

[Dennis]

Great results though. That makes you the forum expert Sandra.

[ShinyLauren]

I love the skull Sandra - nice piercing work!

[Sandra]

Thank you both! I've since got flatware out of my system though and have moved on LOL ;)