JC week 9 preparation for silver soldering brass sword handle

NB: journal entry for the Jewellery and Small object module at South bank Griffith university (QCA) to view the full journal click here

Preparation for silver soldering brass sword handle

To be able to silver solder brass you need to have a tight, clean join between the two surfaces.
The intention is to solder four brass cylinders that are 11cm high by 10cm in circumference.
For silver soldering with a propane torch this is a large surface area to heat so the cleanest possible join will be needed.
Also note that these cylinders have an embossed surface

Embossed brass sheets that are to be made into cylinders and soldered for the sword handle

First using a rounded timber length, the brass sheets were bent around it making a basic cylinder shape

The edges that are to be soldered need to be bent so that they are parallel to one another, this was achieved by placing the basic cylinder shape over a thin strip of timber

While still on the timber strip I shaped the edges carefully with a rubber mallet, taking care not to damage the embossing on the brass surface. This process was repeated on all of the cylinders.

as you can see while the edges are now running parallel but there is quite a large gap,  I carefully bent the join past its connection point both front and back, the idea here is to use the tension of the metal itself to create a tight join.

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The result of the before mentioned method creates a tight join, note the top is not level, for the purpose of soldering this is not important as this occured when the metal was run through the press roller to create the embossing.

The brass cylinders are now ready to be soldered.

Also note that the cylinders do not need to be perfectly shaped at this point. The heating process when soldering can/ cause distortion in the metal and once soldered the cylinders can be reshapped