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• Before & After •
10" Tiffany Sterling Plate

This plate came to me with chased lettering (not engraved) that the customer wanted removed and the overall look brought back to its original beauty. I couldn't planish out the lettering because the metal would dramatically deform and loose thickness. I couldn't fill it in with silver solder because of all the pin holes and color difference that would result. And electroforming wouldn't do. This job required the use of my pulse arc welder and was going to very complex. The lower parts of the lettering were very thin as it was chased on a steel form, and the slightly rounded corners would be more difficult to level with the overall disk. These factors required numerous setting adjustments on the welder.

Above, I'm flattening the over-filled sterling mounds with a special smoothing mode. This entire filling and smoothing process was extremely time-consuming, requiring enormous concentration and constant refocusing of the 10x microscope.

The lettering completely filled.

The deposited sterling was then planished over a slightly domed stake to remove any porosity left by the welding. Then, 600-, 1200-, and 2000-grit silicon carbide wet/dry paper was used to remove any high spots and prepare the surface for polishing.

The center disk shows no sign of ever having been chased.

The plate was repatinated and lightly polished, resulting in a dramatic transformation. The entire restoration took over 14 hours!

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