Society of North American Goldsmiths • Artists • Designers • Jewelers • Metalsmiths August 2009
20
TECH NEWS
We are publishing this article again because the images were not included in the last issue.
In this newsletter we take a look at pewter. Many people overlook this metal and what it can do. Mainly this is due to the fear of
contaminating your silver. If proper precautions are taken, and certain tools are separated, pewter can be part of your technical
toolbox.
Pewter – The Other White Metal
By T. J. Fejka
For those of you who have worked with precious and base
metals, a foray into pewtersmithing will be a trip down the
rabbit hole. Strange sights, unusual happenings and unfamiliar
experiences will greet you at every turn
Life without new experiences gets boring, pewter offers the
opportunity for a fresh start, a new flavor for the metalsmith.
In this article I will detail some of the unique aspects of
working pewter as I walk you through a simple project then
lead you toward some supplies and suppliers.
Warning: Oh, I hate to be dramatic (OK, so maybe I don’t...)
but seriously I do need to warn you of the dangers of working
pewter if you also work precious or base metals. If you get
pewter, even an amount as small as a dust particle, on gold,
silver, copper, brass, etc. and then heat those metals to an
annealing temperature or above, the pewter “pollution” will
alloy with the metal it is laying on and result in a blemish that
you will not be able to remove completely. Later in the article I
will cover what you can do if you get minimal pewter pollution
on a piece but right now I will tell you how you can avoid the
horror in the first place.
A separate work area is required for your pewtersmithing
endeavor. I have my silver bench and in a different part of my
shop I have a dedicated pewter bench. This may sound drastic
but I hope it doesn’t dissuade you from working with pewter.
My hope is that you will find a spot in your studio to work
pewter and give it a try, as it is a most satisfying, and different
metal to work.
For the remainder of the article you can assume “precious and
base metals” when I use the word “silver.”
Some tools can be used for both silver and pewter and some
cannot. I’ll break down the tools into two categories. The first
category will be “Never Use”. These items you must never use
with silver and pewter, you will need separate tools for each
metal. The second category will be “Can Use – But take
precautions”
Never Use:
Saw blades
Sand Paper
Bench Pins
Mallets
Files & file cleaners
Polishing Wheels
Brass Brush
Soldering blocks
Can Use – But take precautions:
Stakes and hammers
When you use these tools with pewter, pieces of pewter
sometimes get “stuck” to the tools. You should be able to
see the color difference between the steel of the hammer
or stake and the pewter. Depending on the degree of
polish on your tools you can remove the pewter with
0000 steel wool or a ScotchBrite (scuff) pad.
Pliers: When you are working your pewter piece and you have
your pliers on or near you bench, pewter dust from filing
and sanding operations will make its way into the joints
of your pliers. I have two sets of pliers but sometimes I
need to use a pewter specific plier on silver or vise versa.
To avoid pewter pollution, I keep a fairly stiff bristled
paintbrush nearby and thoroughly brush off any pewter
dust prior to using the plier on silver.
Layout tools: Scales, scribes, dividers, etc. A good looking over
to make sure no pewter is on the tool and a quick dusting with
the paint brush will usually suffice.
Burs: Burs should be cleaned thoroughly with a stainless steel
“tooth brush” to remove any pewter in the teeth of the burr.
Rolling Mill: Same as hammers and stakes
That pretty much covers it but any tools I did not mention, just
use your common sense...if you don’t have that in your bag of
tricks, err on the side of caution and do not use the tool
between the two different metals.
OK, now for some pewter “Fun Facts.”
• Pewter never work hardens; in fact it actually gets softer the
more you work it. Since it never work hardens, it never needs
to be annealed. • Pewter does not develop fire scale when
heated. The soldering and welding temperature of pewter is so
low that you can do any binding with masking tape. You can
hold your pewter piece with a gloved hand (hot mill gloves
work best) when soldering. • Pewter does not tarnish. Modern
pewter contains no lead but most pewter solders (soft solders)
do. A pewter piece that is not finished to a high polish but
rather has a filed, sanded or scuffed finish will get discolored by
the oil and dirt from peoples hands. This is not, in the true
sense of the word, “tarnish” and is best cleaned using a scuff
pad or steel wool, depending on the original finish. If either
Society of North American Goldsmiths • Artists • Designers • Jewelers • Metalsmiths steel wool or a scuff pad is used, they should be thoroughly wet
with water and lubed with dish detergent.
• The melting point of pewter is so low that it can be cast in
wood, aluminum foil or even kraft paper. If you are familiar with
cuttle fish casting, you know that the cuttle fish mold is
destroyed once you pour your silver in it. Not so with pewter,
you can cast pewter multiple times into a cuttle fish mold with­
out destroying it. • Speed! In my opinion this is one of the best
strengths of pewter over silver. Without the need to anneal,
without the high heat and pickling process and the relative ease
of “moving” the metal, doing the same project in pewter vs.
silver can be accomplished in half the time or less. • Cost. All
metals have risen in price lately and pewter is no exception.
Consisting mainly of tin, it follows the tin market closely. At the
writing of this article, pewter is going for around $10 per pound.
So let’s get started working!
For this discussion let’s assume that we are starting with a
rectangle of pewter, 0.050 thick. If it is your first pewter project
I would keep the size fairly small so you haven’t wasted too
much material if you are unhappy with the finished piece.
Using offset aviation snips cut a piece of pewter 8” x 4”. Mallet
the 4” edges straight. Using a stake or mandrel start forming
your rectangle into a somewhat cylindrical form. Use your
hands initially as you push the metal around the stake. Once
you have your cylinder nearly formed, you can mallet it where
necessary to bring it to a circular cross section. In actuality the
cross section will be more oval than circular so that the edges
of the joint will line up well for welding.
August 2009
Why the tape? Pewter is so soft and moves so easily that once
you have formed the piece, leaving a 0.050 inch gap, and placed
it
on your soldering block for welding, the gap will open up on its
own causing you to have to readjust your piece to obtain the
proper gap.
I solder and weld pewter on a piece of hardwood, I happen to
use Cherry wood but any hardwood will suffice, as will any
other typical soldering surface you are familiar with using. I
use hardwood because it is rather inexpensive, can handle the
heat necessary to weld or solder pewter and it holds up well
with use. You can probably find a piece for free or have some
hanging around in your shop. Softwood will work too but just
isn’t as durable over time.
Position your piece on the soldering surface with the joint
facing up. I bend some pieces of copper wire and use them as
jigs to keep the cylinder from rolling around on the block as I
am welding. Anything will work, little wooden wedges, small
stones...whatever, just something to keep the piece stable.
Since pewter has such a low melting point, I do most of my
soldering and welding with a propane or butane torch. The only
time I use oxy/acetylene is when I am working in a deep vessel
and a fuel/air torch will use up the air in the vessel and thus
self extinguish.
Flux the joint and the welding rod with Stay-Clean liquid flux.
Starting at the non-taped end, place the rod near the end of the
joint (about 1/4” back), play the torch on the end of the joint to
warm up the pewter. When pewter is about to melt it gets a bit
“frosty” looking, the next indication is silvery/shiny...at this
point it has liquefied and will fall. Before that happens you want
to bring the welding rod closer to the flame and the end of the
joint and direct your flame mostly on the rod. This all happens
quickly so you need to be ready to move. As the rod begins to
melt it should be melting into, and thus joining, the parent
metal (the edges of the pewter cylinder). I have my torch angled
toward the unwelded length of the joint, playing the heat on
both parent metal and rod but mostly on the rod.
1. Malleting the cylinder on the blowhorn stake
Pewter can be welded or soldered; I always weld the initial joint
of a cylinder. A welded joint is stronger than a soldered seam
and will be the same color as the pewter since we use scrap
pewter cutoffs to make our welding rod.
Cut your welding rod stock about 1/8” wide, Bring the edges of
your cylinder together but leave a gap approximately the
thickness of the metal you are using (in this case 0.050, nearly
1/16”). Using a small piece of masking tape, tape one end of the
of the piece to maintain the correct gap, you will begin your
weld at the untaped end. If you are making a piece much taller
than this 4” one, you will need to put a second piece of tape
near the mid point of the joint.
21
2. Note position of hands, torch and rod Ready to start the weld bead
Society of North American Goldsmiths • Artists • Designers • Jewelers • Metalsmiths August 2009
22
You will only be able to weld about 2 or 3” at a time as the heat
will build up in the metal and if you try to make too long of a
weld bead, your parent metal will begin to melt and sag into
the inside of the vessel, or worse, melt through and create a
hole. To avoid that, stop, turn your piece around, remove the
first piece of tape and begin a bead from that end. Work from
both ends until the weld beads meet.
As this point you should have a weld bead that looks similar to
an arc weld bead on steel. The bead won’t stay looking like that
for long.
5. The weld bead has been blended into the parent metal
We now “flash” the weld joint on the inner surface of the
cylinder. Flux the joint on the inside of the cylinder. Hold the
piece in a gloved hand with the joint at the bottom. Play the
torch flame on the interior joint in a manner similar to the
method used when you blended the bead on the outer surface.
The main difference here is that you are simply working on the
joint and not on the parent metal as you did on the exterior
bead. This step ensures that your interior weld is fully joined to
the parent metal.
3. Weld is finished and ready to be “blended”
into the parent metal
The next step is to “blend” the bead into the parent metal.
Reflux the bead, holding the torch at 90 degrees to the weld
bead and directing your flame on the bead, heat it until it just
starts to liquefy.
I keep a plastic bucket filled with water by my pewter bench.
Stay-Clean flux is very corrosive and will rust steel tools
overnight. After any welding or soldering operation, I always
dip the piece completely in the bucket of water and make sure
that no flux is left on the piece. The flux, once heated, can
range from nearly clear to a dark brown. Rubbing it with your
hand while submerged in the bucket of water should remove
any flux from the piece. If some of the dark brown flux
remains, put it back in the water and with a bit more rubbing
it should be gone. Once the flux is removed, dry the piece off
with a paper or terry cloth towel.As you know, once metal is
melted and re-solidifies, it has a crystalline structure, we must
break this down by forging the joint. During this forging step
we also make the area of the joint the same thickness as the
parent metal.
4. Torch position used for the weld bead blending operation
At this point play your torch on the bead and the parent metal
adjacent to the bead. Your goal is to smooth out the bead so
that when we forge it smooth, there will be no line on the
surface of the metal where the weld bead and parent metal
meet. Cool the piece in a bucket of water.
6. Ready to forge the blended bead and level it
to the thickness of the parent metal
Society of North American Goldsmiths • Artists • Designers • Jewelers • Metalsmiths Place the welded cylinder on a steel stake or mandrel with the
joint facing up. Using a forging hammer, hammer straight
down onto the joint. Forging the weld bead will stretch the
metal as you thin the weld bead to the thickness of the parent
metal. You can not avoid this stretching so try to do the
forging operation evenly over the entire length of the joint so
that you keep a consistent diameter along the whole length of
the cylinder. Blend the edges of the forged joint into the parent
metal with lighter hammer strokes. The goal is to have the
joint area the same thickness as the parent metal. Doing so will
make any future forming process more consistent.
August 2009
23
top, begin soldering the base to the sides.
Unlike silver soldering, when soldering pewter you play your
flame directly on the solder chips. You will slightly preheat the
base and the sides of the vessel but the majority of the heat will
go on the solder chips. Work your way around the base until
you have soldered it on completely. You must now pull the
solder to the inside of the vessel.
If you are lucky you will see solder on the inside surface of the
joint from your initial soldering operation…I am seldom lucky.
You will not have a good joint until you can see a bead of solder
all the way around the inside edge and base of the piece. This
step can be a little tricky for beginning pewtersmiths.
Flux the inside joint. Make sure you have adequate solder on
the outside lip of the base to be pulled inside. Alternate your
torch both inside and outside the vessel at the joint between
base and sides. As you are doing this, look at the inside joint.
Hold the vessel in a gloved hand and when you see solder
flowing around the inner joint, rotate the piece to allow gravity
to help the joint to flow. When you see a solder bead around
the entire inner circumference the joint is complete. One last
quick check, make sure that you haven’t pulled too much
solder from the outer joint and created a gap. If you did, simply
flow some more solder on the outer joint.
7. The forged bead when finished
The most difficult and stressful part (for most people) is over.
You can now have fun by shaping the cylinder using mallets,
hammers, stakes, anvil heads or whatever you have or find to
form the vessel over. Pewter is very malleable and can be
stretched and formed very easily over mandrels, stakes, etc.
Once you are happy with the shape you can finish it in a
number of ways. The quickest would be a basic file finish. To do
that you simply file the outer surface smooth, moving the file
in directionally consistent, overlapping strokes. For a finer
finish you can sand and polish after filing. Or you can planish
your piece over the stakes you used to form it for a beautiful
hand hammered finish. Of course a file finish is the quickest
and can be very pleasing to the eye if done well. When filing
pewter, keep you files very clean. A dirty or “pinned” file will
quickly and deeply gouge and gaul the surface of the pewter.
Once you are pleased with the sides of the vessel you are ready
to solder the bottom on. File the bottom edge to remove any
unevenness. Cut a disk that allows for about an 1/8” lip beyond
the edged of the vessel. Place the vessel on the disk and flux the
entire joint. Lightly heat the joint until the flux turns from a
liquid to a more solid state. Place solder chips on the base,
around the circumference of the vessel. The chips should butt
right up to the sides of the vessel. Prior to flowing the solder,
you will want to apply pressure evenly to the top edge of the
vessel to keep it in contact with the base while soldering. To
accomplish this I place an appropriate sized wooden board on
the top of the vessel and apply pressure using your free (nontorch holding) hand. While maintaining the pressure from the
As the dentist says, “Almost done.” Using aviation snips, trim
the lip of the base close to the sides. File the remainder flush
with the sides. Finish the base to the same degree that you
finished the sides. If you opted for a planished finish for the
sides, you will need to fit your base inside the vessel vs. on
the bottom as described above. That’s a bit trickier but not
terribly so.
The top edge can be treated in one of several ways. The easiest
is to planish straight down on the edge to slightly thicken it
and impart a nice hammered texture. Another method is to
solder pewter or copper wire around the edge. The most
difficult method is rolling the edge over using hammers and
stakes. However you decide to treat the top edge, your pewter
vessel is now complete!
Sometimes reading about a process makes it seem over­
whelming. I hope I haven’t left you overwhelmed but rather
excited about trying your hand at pewter. So go clear away a
space in your studio. Learn, experiment and discover a different
material—a new challenge that can lead to many satisfying
projects.
I promised that I would tell you how to deal with pewter
pollution on a silver piece. First I am assuming that the
pollution was slight, if it is too large an area, there is not much
you can do to save the silver piece. The pollution will present
itself as a gray, pitted area on the silver. Depending on where
this is on the piece, the blemish should be removed using files
or gravers. Remove it until you no longer see the gray color.
Hopefully you have no more soldering left to do on the silver
piece. If that is the case, simply polish the area and you are
done. If you still have solder operations left to perform on the
Society of North American Goldsmiths • Artists • Designers • Jewelers • Metalsmiths silver piece, go ahead and do so after removing the blemish
with the files or gravers, do no polish. After soldering the
blemish will reappear but not to the degree it had prior to
removing most of it with the file or graver. After all soldering is
done, remove any blemish as before and polish. Of course your
best bet is to avoid the pollution in the first place but if it
happens you will know how to deal with it.
Supplies and Suppliers
Pewter sheet: Lehigh Metals Corporation 14 Lehigh Street,
Providence, RI 02905-4724; 800.769.1995, 401.941.7361;
Fax: 401.941.7368. Lehigh supplies sheet and casting ingots.
They do not sell wire or solder. They stock certain sizes but
will custom mill to your specifications. I have always
ordered stock sizes to save time. The sheet is high quality
and clean and is packaged very well.
Pewter sheet, wire and solder: Contenti The Contenti
Company, 515 Narragansett Park Drive, Pawtucket, RI
02861; 401.305.3000; Fax: 800.651.1887, 401.305.3005;
<http://www.contenti.com/index.html> <http://www.
contenti.com/products/metals/235-031.html>. Contenti
does not offer 0.050 thick sheet (which is what I use mostly
and recommended in the article). If you order sheet from
them, I would go with the 0.062. It will be more difficult to
August 2009
24
move than the 0.050 but less likely for a beginner to melt vs.
0.040 (their next thinner size after the 0.062).
I would suggest that you get some “low melt” and “60/40” precut solder chips. Personally I get them in different chip sizes so
that I don’t confuse the low melt with the 60/40 when the chips
are lying on my bench. You can relate the 60/40 to “hard”
grade silver solder and the low melt to “easy” silver solder. Of
course they melt at a much lower temp than any grade of silver
solder, it will just help you to know when to switch to low melt
if you think of them as “hard” and “easy.”
All other tools and supplies: You can get the aviation snips,
Stay-Clean flux and files through a local hardware store or
through MSC Industrial Supply, <www.mscdirect.com>.
Most local hardware stores will not have finer cut files; MSC is
you better source for those. Initially I would suggest 6” and 10”
Nicholson mill and half round files in both “Second” and
“Smooth Cut.” These will give you a good start and you can add
as needed.
[Another source for Pewter and Lead-free solder, in the Los
Angeles area, is Stellar Technical Products, 707 E. Gardena
Blvd., Gardena, CA 90248, 310.660.0140; <www.stellar
technical.com>.]
SNAG News will pay up to $125 per page (up to 4 pages) for informa­tive technical articles aimed at any level—from inter­
mediate to advanced, from student to the highly skilled professional. If you teach a workshop, have a clever bench trick or
technique of interest to other jewelers and metalsmiths, or have more academically based technical research, please share
it with our SNAG community.
Send your submission to Jim Bové, 1497 Route 136, Washington, PA 15301,
jimbove@hotmail.com
Bench Tip:
Guess how trombone instrument makers get to create all those
wonderful bent tubes in brass 26 gauge and finer.
Once the tubing is fabricated from sheet and die extruded to the correct diameter,
one end of the tube is capped in wax; then filled with water; then wax capped on the
other end.
Here’s the clever bit: the water-filled tube is deep frozen and bent with a tube
bender whilst still frozen — No kinks, just water to clean up after — you know you
want to try it.
—Nick Barnes, Washington Guild of Goldsmiths Newsletter, Spring Issue 2009