Silver and steel! Soldering, and also hallmarking

[marna]

I have had a few people ask about shawlpins suitable for woven or felted shawls (as opposed to knitted). With knitted you can have nice thick pins, but less so for felted or woven, and a long silver pin of under 1mm diameter is possibly not strong enough to secure a heavy wrap. Steel would be tougher for thinner.

Is it possible to solder stainless steel to sterling silver? The internet is deeply divided on this one! I'm probably going to get some steel hatpins and try it out with scrap silver to see.

If I do manage to add silver to steel, how does it hallmark (if over the limit?) - do I have to have a separate hallnote for these?

[Dennis]

Dear Marna,
It is permissible to use stainless steel for the pins of brooches. They don't interfere with hall marking and are so light that the weight is negligible.

1.00 mm is ideal and the trick is to make them sharp, but slightly rounded, so that they pass between the fibres and not through them.

My design below is very simple and round, so that it mitigates the tendency to hang askew.

The end of the pin is heated and quenched, to allow a small closed loop to be bent, but is immensely strong without soldering. My home made fichou joint is bent up from rectangular strip, and drilled for a stout silver rivet. The catch is made from the same stock.

The wire comes from KC Smith Ortho Ltd and comes in straight pieces: Round stainless steel wire R600H01.000L30 and cost £7.44 for a large amount including post and Vat. For felt you could use 0.80mm wire.

The length of this pin is about 40mm. A double pin would hang better, but would be awkward to use. Dennis

[LauraJ]

Dear Marna,
It is permissible to use stainless steel for the pins of brooches. They don't interfere with hall marking and are so light that the weight is negligible.

1.00 mm is ideal and the trick is to make them sharp, but slightly rounded, so that they pass between the fibres and not through them.

My design below is very simple and round, so that it mitigates the tendency to hang askew.

The end of the pin is heated and quenched, to allow a small closed loop to be bent, but is immensely strong without soldering. My home made fichou joint is bent up from rectangular strip, and drilled for a stout silver rivet. The catch is made from the same stock.

The wire comes from KC Smith Ortho Ltd and comes in straight pieces: Round stainless steel wire R600H01.000L30 and cost £7.44 for a large amount including post and Vat. For felt you could use 0.80mm wire.

The length of this pin is about 40mm. A double pin would hang better, but would be awkward to use. Dennis

That's gorgeous Dennis and a great explanation


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Goldsmith]

I have had a few people ask about shawlpins suitable for woven or felted shawls (as opposed to knitted). With knitted you can have nice thick pins, but less so for felted or woven, and a long silver pin of under 1mm diameter is possibly not strong enough to secure a heavy wrap. Steel would be tougher for thinner.

Is it possible to solder stainless steel to sterling silver? The internet is deeply divided on this one! I'm probably going to get some steel hatpins and try it out with scrap silver to see.

If I do manage to add silver to steel, how does it hallmark (if over the limit?) - do I have to have a separate hallnote for these?

If you wish to add precious metal items to steel or any other non precious metals, get the precious metal sections hallmarked while unfinished, then add the steel after hallmarking. When I have made items with steel pins, I make a tube section in precious metal that the steel pin will fit into. I have made a few items that required large steel pins and used darning needles as the pins. As for the hallmarking if needed just add a note on the hallmark sheet explaining that you are adding the hallmarked section to non precious metals, I have to do this when I make gold mounts for rock crystal flower vases.

[enigma]

I tried using silver for my brooch pins originally until Dennis advised as above, they are really way too soft IMO and I had a lot of problems with them.
I switched to using the steel pins that Dennis kindly gave me the info on and can honestly say Im delighted with the result- far stronger pins with no customers complaining their pin bent as they rammed it through a great wad of material lol.