08-23-2011, 08:29 AM
Salutem omnibus dico
As far as I know there were two methods known in the ancient world to silver copper alloys: either with a mercury amalgam or with silver sheet attached by soft solder. This latter method is interesting because it arouses difficulties if some more complex parts must be silvered. Objects with rectangular and regular shapes, e.g. belt plates, can be easily covered with silver sheet, but if they do not have a rectangular and regular shape, e.g. some parts of the horse equipment, it gets very hard to cover those parts with silver sheet.
I would like to get more information on this silvering method. Is there for example something known about the composition of the solder the Romans used to attach their silver sheet? What was the thickness of the sheet? I`m also interested in pictures of artefacts that has been silvered using this method in order to figure out how they folded the thin silver sheet around the more complex artefacts without a regular and / or rectangular shape.
In the attachment you can see a pendant. The silver guy must be silved with the mercury amalgam since it is almost impossible to cover it with sheet. The round part, however, seems to be silvered with several separate pieces of metal foil. At the border between two separate pieces of silver sheet, you can see a grey line that seems to be solder. This line of solder also seems to cover the place between the separate pieces of sheet to allow a nice finish since thos separate plates never join perfectly together.
I want to understand the way how they covered complex pieces with sheet by examining original finds, so, if someone has some pictures of interesting finds, I will be very grateful. I`m also interested in the answer of the two questions I asked in the second paragraph.
[attachment=1519]Militairependantcavalerie2.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1520]Militairependantcavaleriereformata.JPG[/attachment]
As far as I know there were two methods known in the ancient world to silver copper alloys: either with a mercury amalgam or with silver sheet attached by soft solder. This latter method is interesting because it arouses difficulties if some more complex parts must be silvered. Objects with rectangular and regular shapes, e.g. belt plates, can be easily covered with silver sheet, but if they do not have a rectangular and regular shape, e.g. some parts of the horse equipment, it gets very hard to cover those parts with silver sheet.
I would like to get more information on this silvering method. Is there for example something known about the composition of the solder the Romans used to attach their silver sheet? What was the thickness of the sheet? I`m also interested in pictures of artefacts that has been silvered using this method in order to figure out how they folded the thin silver sheet around the more complex artefacts without a regular and / or rectangular shape.
In the attachment you can see a pendant. The silver guy must be silved with the mercury amalgam since it is almost impossible to cover it with sheet. The round part, however, seems to be silvered with several separate pieces of metal foil. At the border between two separate pieces of silver sheet, you can see a grey line that seems to be solder. This line of solder also seems to cover the place between the separate pieces of sheet to allow a nice finish since thos separate plates never join perfectly together.
I want to understand the way how they covered complex pieces with sheet by examining original finds, so, if someone has some pictures of interesting finds, I will be very grateful. I`m also interested in the answer of the two questions I asked in the second paragraph.
[attachment=1519]Militairependantcavalerie2.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1520]Militairependantcavaleriereformata.JPG[/attachment]
(aka Niels)