Cracked silver or deep scratch...? Help!

[Vawny]

Hello,

Probably a stupid question; but I'm confused and it makes sense to pick the brains of the more experienced Silversmiths here... if you can help....

So I've been wearing a few small pendants together, and noticed a faint line going all the way around the side of my favourite one. Terrified I'd cracked it; I heated it up in an attempt to get the silver to liquify and close the gap. But this particular pendant has a thin layer of gold on it so I was mindful about damaging or moving that, so I don't think I got it the temperature to make the silver section liquid enough.

I can still see the blemish.

My question is this: if I heated a piece with a crack in it, would that have just crumbled under the heat? It's got to have made it worse if it was a crack...? This doesn't seem worse so wondering if maybe it was just a scratch... I let it cool down on it's own after heating it up so as to minimise any chance of further damage.

Hope that makes sense and someone can help!

Thanks for reading 👍 xx

[Vawny]

PS. I have stopped wearing items together also!!

[CJ57]

A photograph would be helpful

[Vawny]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Caroline...

It has gold on it; no plating (I personally dislike it anyway) but I'm not so inexperienced that I'd try to melt plating... Also can't be from casting as this was an already established piece...

I see your point about the lack of pictures... I don't have a good enough camera to show you all what I'm talking about unfortunately, or I'd have lead with pictures...

Honestly, I didn't really think it would work but was worth a try I thought; from the way you worded your reply I gather that was a stupid attempt at a solution, not really sure why, but I am new to this and don't have access to any resources besides what I can find in books and online.

As I say, I don't know for sure whether it's a crack or not... all I was looking for really was someone to tell me what would happen if you tried to heat a crack, so I could work out for myself what I have here.

Maybe a moderator could delete this thread since it's not going to go anywhere...? I just feel like an idiot now.

[CJ57]

I’ve deleted my post Vawny so that someone else can advise

[enigma]

I don't think much would happen if you gently heated a crack.
Its impossible to say without photos but if its a scratch you could polish it out, if a crack you could try filling with hard solder.