how best to sandwich a piece of silver and copper together? 7th Anniversary gift

[caroleallen]

From a design point of view, I wonder why you would want to sandwich 2 different metals together. I get the copper - 7th anniversary thing but why not use the copper as a design feature onto the silver rather than as an add-on to the back. It's going to look very plain and boring and you run the risk that she won't like it. It will also be difficult for you to polish unless you have a bench polisher or are prepared to spend hours polishing by hand.

[Dennis]

My sentiments exactly. As I tried to suggest indirectly, you might well try to get away from the military dog tag image.

If you have a fretsaw frame, you could buy a bundle of 0/3 jewellers' saw blades and cut out an initial from the copper for instance.

Alternatively you could bend one up from copper wire. The earth wire from electrical cable is a cheap source for this. Tacking it onto a silver backing in two or three places with solder would be a doddle and the whole thing could be polished with a toothbrush and Brasso/Silvo. Cleaning up would be with neat washing up liquid.

You could then make a hole near the top of your pendant, put in a silver split ring and suspend it from a made up chain. All these things can be ordered on line form Cookson. Dennis

[Didi]

Hi Joel
I made a ring using the copper and silver sandwich method. Its still being worn, no battery effect, sweat soldering worked well. It's detailed in an earlier thread you might find useful 'Copper and Silver sandwich'. I completely melted the first one I tried but the second one worked really well and Maria is still wearing it. If you cant find the thread it is on my blog.
Good luck
Didi

[ps_bond]

There's always electrolytic corrosion - it just varies from person to person and according to design.

Have a look at this for a worst-case scenario:
http://ganoksin.com/blog/binnion/201...h-a-good-idea/

[metalsmith]

Enjoying(?!) just such an event recently I took some copper wire and (building a small igloo from Firecement) managed to melt it down and then hammer out to a small flat sheet from which I cut a heart. Given it was Winter (high heat losses) there's no way the good lady appreciated the trouble this took and the trinket just joined the dress jewellery collection to be largely ignored into the future.

Just double checking - as our anniversary was the 9th - Copper is in common with both 7 and 9th ... I don't know how it happened but I clearly missed a trick - the alternative material for the 9th is leather!! Put that in your diary now ...

[CJ57]

The other alternative for 7 is wool, you could just take up knitting or that widens the present options hugely.

[Animalnutty]

May be I'm an odd bod but I'd be so taken with my chap going to the trouble of learning how to make something, even kept simple, with dates etc, that I really would not care if gold or copper and I def would prefer something special with meaning and made from the heart that an actual platinum heart, any day. Like I say, maybe I am odd though, well sure I am!

I also quite like simple sandwiching effect, if it is what I am thinking, like sheet of silver then copper then silver again, then only silver would be touching the person and avoid problems presumably, others are way more experienced than me though so best listening to them!

[snowathlete]

Sorry for the delay in reply everyone, I have health problems which floor me sometimes so haven't been well enough until now to reply but I intend to see this through eventually. Thanks everyone for the thoughts and ideas.

Didi your sandwiching looks fantastic. I couldnt find it on the forum but looked on your site. How easy/hard is it to sandwich several layers together like this? Can you share the technique?

I am thinking of a longish, slim pendant, sandwiching several layers together, either 7 different ones, one for each year - but this may make the piece too thick I am thinking, or say four or five like you have Didi and then I thought I could attach little spheres of silver and/or copper (one for each year) starting small and increasing slightly in size as it goes down the pendant. I think I can figure out how to make the balls pretty easily, but how easy do you reckon they would they be to flux on to the pendant? Will a tiny amount of flux do it?