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 Replies: 124 / Views: 18,426 |
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
737 Posts |
Pro advice 'after' deciding to go through with it which is where I am right now. Prior advice Not to has been duely noted & appreciated, thanks.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2335 Posts |
It's not rocket science. Anyone with a torch & patience can separate the pieces. Best case scenario you will end up with 3 coins with solder on the reverse, a spoon with solder remnants, & all 4 pieces will show marks from the heat. The only way a "pro" will have different results is if they spend a a lot of time after the pieces are separated cleaning and polishing...and if they do that you will still end up with "details" coins that cost a pile of money.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
737 Posts |
Ok, but from what others have said & videos I've watched, there is something called a solder wick or a solder pump that can pull away the melted solder therefore leaving a lot less on the coins & that's what I'm aiming at if anything. Otherwise, there's no point and they might as well just stay on the spoon and in the realm of curiosity.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3234 Posts |
Quote:
...are separated cleaning and polishing.. You'll be only left with silver value if this happens.."be careful here..!!"..  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2335 Posts |
It's my understanding that a solder pump is primarily used for solders with lower melting points such as lead solder, 50/50, 60/40, or the low temp non-lead types developed for plumbing when it became illegal to use lead in drinking water pipes. I've never used one myself & everything I'm saying is based on my plumbing background.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
737 Posts |
Understood, silver solder might prove difficult to work with.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1463 Posts |
What you could do is experiment. take a junk silver quarter a solder it to a junk silver dime and then see if you can separate them after with minimal damage. Then you'll have an idea of what you're dealing with.
Try copper pennies or what ever, get a piece of copper pipe flatten it like a spoon solder some old copper pennies on, see where you get.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
Polishing will not remove the solder the way you want it. Yes, any monkey can de-solder something, but then you have the problem of stained metal as I've pointed out before, and you still will have indiscriminate solder splotches that are hard to remove without the right set of tools (not to mention the melting point of the tool used to pump lead/tin solder versus the melting point of silver solder). I really think you should forget about trying to read the dates and try to restore the spoon by straightening out the coins or by taking them out. Should you decide to remove the coins from the spoon to restore it, take it to someone who has done these things before because if you don't know <I>where</I> to heat the metal, and for how long, the solder will go into cracks and crevices in the spoon's design. Even the length and color of the flame matters. That's all I'm going to say. Just show us the ruined spoon should you choose to do it yourself. I apologize if that sounds hifalutin or pompous but that's just tough love and I don't want to see you ruin a nice piece. Save your money and time and just ask a local expert. Bon nuit.
Edited by Libertad
01/03/2017 12:00 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4233 Posts |
I can't believe this has gone on for 6 pages. All you want to do is see the dates, so chisel off the coins and be done with it.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12477 Posts |
Very suspenseful thread! I have to say I'm not a fan of the original piece. I would try to separate them if it were mine. I'm patiently waiting.  In Memory of Crazyb0 12-26-1951 to 7-27-2020
In Memory of Tootallious 3-31-1964 to 4-15-2020
In Memory of T-BOP 10-12-1949 to 1-19-2024
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
737 Posts |
@Libertad - Haha, no offense taken and 6 pages of comments could be typical for coin lovers. If it were spoon collectors, they would say why take a chance and ruin a good spoon. :)
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
891 Posts |
just a thought. Neither the coins ,or the spoon appear to have suffered any serious toning from heat, and as I mentioned before the soldering job doesn't look very professional. As would have been done by a jeweler. My father in law did all kinds of this stuff for gifts to his family, just with a soldering iron and the old lead solder |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4233 Posts |
The time you spend responding here, you could be chiseling. Get on with it, man!
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
Chiseling doesn't remove solder. This is why don't listen to the Internet. Groany face...
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1602 Posts |
There's one big assumption here that hasn't been addressed: the method used to join the coins and spoon in the first place. We've been going on the assumption that these were joined by silver soldering (properly called brazing) which uses temperatures much higher than good old lead soldering formulas. If this was a homemade piece & like you've said may not have been done by a pro jeweler or silversmith, the maker might just have used some formulation of lead solder to join the pieces.
It doesn't need to be brazed because the pieces being joined are sterling silver, so what's being joined might just be the copper (7.5%), which as you two plumbers know, takes lead quite well. My point is that it might be easier to get these apart that we've thought; less heat and less damage in the end.
That all being said, DO get the professional advise.
Edited by Biedercoins
01/04/2017 09:00 am
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Replies: 124 / Views: 18,426 |
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Posted 01/02/2017 4:09 pm
