Cold bonding ?

Hello,

We had someone come in today , they want to remove an engraved name from a Silver plated tray's middle name plate section.

My tutor tried to use various emmery/stone attachments on the pend drill, but although this was successful to a point, the engraving is deep.

The tray is around 1.5 - 2mm thick towards the centre, the engraving in places looks around 3/4-1mm deep...we left it for today and we're back on it tomorrow....I was wondering if I should suggest to my tutor that he either drills and cuts the middle area out and relsolders a blank plate in its place...but as we don't have a big enough plating facility, obviously, by putting heat near the plating, this will lift, so an entire plating (Costly) job would send the finish price through the roof.

So my other thought, is for him/us to cement/solder a blank plate over the old engraving...I know we could your Aryldyte resin but I was wondering if perhaps there is a silver cement that I can apply cold that'll hold the plate in place...I'm guessing the blank name plate would only be around 1/4mm thick.

Or...is there a silver paste/filler that we could fill and rub over the engraving to fill the letters enough that the middle will be blank.

If there is something like this, does it come in Gold and does it set enough that it can be re-engraved over ?

Thank you

No, if you are going to add a small piece of sheet metal by cold connection some options are:

Glue. Not very professional.
Matching screws using a tap and die set.
Tube or wire rivets, soldered to the small piece and passing through the larger one, so that the rivets are only visible at the back. Probably the best choice.

The patch could be a fancy shape, such as a shield, so that it looks like a decoration. It will be slightly raised. Dennis.

Personally I believe your tutor should have know better

Laser. Inlay might have been possible, but it probably isn't now.

I'd agree that the tutor should have known better.

I would say rivets, I've seen a lot of antique silver with riveted silver plaques even on handbags. I was aghast at your tutor who just seemed to be butchering and making worse

Could this be a job for silver clay and technoflux?

Use a small amount of silver clay to fill the previous engraving and a little extra to screed over the engraving plate where damaged.
Use technoflux on the surrounding area to prevent damage to the silver plating.
Torch fire the silver clay with a small hot flame.
File/emery/polish surface ready to re-engrave.

Ceri.

I'm not sure how you got the impression that my tutor "Butchered" this tray from my description...all I said was that he used emmeries and a stone bit on a pendent drill and I said he was somewhat successful, still nevermind.
I did mention though that I was throwing the question out there for any suggestions to my idea...My tutor is back in tomorrow, I'm sure he'll have ideas of his own, I was simply asking if my idea for a way around things was suitable.

The Silver Clay was the "Cement" that I meant, I've never used it, so I didn't know if it would have been a viable option to suggest....As the tray owner is away for 3 months, this will give me time to try the clay idea out and see what my tutor thinks

Thank you for explaining the steps , thats now got my mind working on other uses for Silver clay if thisworks out well.

I like the shield option, too but I am definately going to go down the Silver Clay path first.

Thanks