Firescale

by lei donegan
(Glasgow)

Ok I've done my polishing using the barrel, I loved the outcome but I have this problem is like the firescale on the hole with jumpring attached.Hope I make sense.

Is there any way I can removed it? Picture attached.

Thanks!

Stacy's Answer:


Hi Lei!

Unfortunately, the photo is a bit grainy when blown up, so I am unable to see what you're talking about. What I'm seeing in the photo looks more like a mark from where the hole was punched which simply needs to be polished away.

There are a lot of good sources out there on the subject of firescale if you wish to learn more about this. In a nutshell, firescale is damage done to the Sterling silver by overheating it, allowing excess oxygen in the metal causing damage to the Sterling. It appears as grayish, duller patch-like areas on the silver after it's been buffed. Sometimes the firescale is only "skin deep" so-to-say" and can be polished or sanded away. Other times, the damage goes a bit deeper. Depletion guilding the Sterling silver by repeatedly heating and pickling will raise a layer of fine silver on the surface (while destroying the copper) which may help cover it up.

There are also numerous products available to help prevent firescale such as surface preparations and the use of a hard charcoal block as your soldering pad. I hope you are able to fix the problem!

Comments for Firescale

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Jan 23, 2016
 Approaches to prevent Firescale
by: Anonymous

Fire scale is certainly a problem of us all. I currently work with a small butane torch and have had to use creative approaches to prevent over heating and resulting firescale. One possible approaches is as follows: Attach the opened jump ring to be soldered to the disk. Break your charcole block in half and hang the fluxed disk with the jump attached between those halves. Have the jump ring above the block, ( in locking tweezers to keep it upright for soldering or wedge in in the block) with the opening at the top. (Picture the disk fully covered by the block with very little of the jump exposed above it.) Pick solder a small piece of easy solder to the fluxed jump ring. The premise here is this, the larger disk is protected somewhat by the charcole block from exposure to the flame. I've used my block this way creatively to absorb oxygen as thus diminish the occurance of F. S. with good results. Also Rio sells an expensive spritz type flux ($10/oz or so) that they claim eliminate FS. Haven't used it. Also refer to "Creative Metal Forming " by Betty Longhi and Cynthia Eid for great DIY flux recipies. Hope this helps you dilema. Sorry for all my bad spelling!

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