brass repair

[jdavis]

I could use a little advice on repairing dings in .055 brass wrist plate on squirel rifle. When drriving a brass tack in I ddinged an area around the tack. About 1/16 inch in dia.. I have consider filling the ding with anealed small brass rod and super glue. Can someone help me out.

Jdavis

[P.W.Berkuta]

My opinion on this is --- "your screwed"  . You can TRY to remove the item and TRY to hammer out the dent but I think you will only make it worse. Either make a new one and be VERY careful in putting the nail back in or leave it alone .

[ron w]

I would think you'll never make the repair invisible and peening annealed brass into the divot will only result in more divots. I would just leave them and maybe use a little stain or brass black to antique them, so to speak, so they look like use dings that fit the suggested age of the gun.

[flinchrocket]

If it's not to deep you might try to sand it out. If not just leave it. Sometimes the more you mess with stuff the worse it gets.

[smylee grouch]

Leave it and put cold blue on the whole thing then lightly buff with four-ought steel wool for the aged look.

[jerrywh]

You have to take it out and punch up the dipple from the back side . Then turn it right side up and flush it off. It's like body work man.

[jdavis]

Well, I kind of figured I was up the creek on this one. Did not know that cold blue can be used to antique brass. Any other sugestions on antiquing brass.

Thanks.

[Bill Raby]

   Brass rod and super glue is not going to do it. Nice thing is that it is not too difficult to weld brass. You will need some sort of small torch with an oxygen tank. Melt a piece of brass large enough to fill the ding into a ball and put it on there. Use plenty of flux. You need a small, very hot flame. Put the flame directly on the ball, and try to direct it away form the brass sheet. You want to melt the ball, but not the sheet of brass. When it gets hot enough it will just flow into it and fill the divot. Important thing is that the ball heats up the sheet of brass and not the torch. If you melt a hole through the the brass sheet you have an even bigger problem. Then file down and polish. That gives you an invisible repair. Don't try this unless you have a lot of experience working with metal.

   Easier way to do it is to drill out the divot, put a brass rod through it, and brass solder it in place. Tighter the rod fits, the better the repair will be.

https://www.riogrande.com/Product/Brass-Wire-Solder-20-Ga/132201

   Should be able to melt it with a blow torch using a MAPP cylinder. Not sure. Best to use something with an oxygen tank. Don't forget flux. Then file down to match surface of the metal and polish. Solder seam likely to not be visible at all at first. But possible that it may be visible once it starts to tarnish. The solder is brass alloyed with silver. Different alloy than the regular brass so it is likely going to tarnish differently. It will show up as a fine, dark ring marking the repair. If you keep it polished, it will not be visible. Other choice is to keep it tarnished. Wipe the whole area with a dirty cleaning patch and turn it all dark.

   The other problem you can have is pitting. That is always a problem with solders. You can use this stuff to fill in gaps, but it will be full of pits. You need a perfect fit. You also get pits if you overheat it. Never put flame directly on the solder. Put the solder against the joint and hold it in place with something pointy. An oxidized titanium soldering pick is perfect. I'm sure have a few of those just laying around. But a sharpened thin wire will do. Heat the metal from the other side until it flows through and stop as soon as it does. Check to make sure it filled in all the way around. The solder will always flow towards the heat.

   I hope that this helps.

[Jerry V Lape]

How about dimpling the rest of the nails in a similar manner?

[Gaeckle]

How about dimpling the rest of the nails in a similar manner?

That's an idea, make a pattern

[kutter]

If you want to do the patina thing w/ brass black, or cold blue but the dent in the brass still bothers you,,,you can fill the dent first with common lead/tin soft solder using a small electric soldering tip or elec soldering gun. Done with the part still in the wood so you don't have to pull it out risking damaging it.
Just clean the dent area, a tiny bit of flux, then tin the soldering tip and hold it aginst the area for a moment and it'll quickly flow onto the brass. Add a bit more solder if needed and you're done. Clear it off down smooth and level with the surrounding brass.
Then use (soft) solder black to color the solder and blend it with the coloring of the brass around it done with brass-black and or cold blue.

Don't use the newer lead-free Silver Soft Solder for this as the solder black won't color it much if at all. It'll remain a bright white color,,which for a tiny area might do OK too if the surrounding brass isn't tarnished. The two blend fairly well to the eye when bright, but the brass will eventually tarnish and then the Silver Soft Solder patch will show for sure.

Plain old 60/40 or 50/50 lead/tin solder works good.,,and no you won't damage the wood doing this with a soldering gun. It'll take but a few moments to actually solder the dent up.
.......
Another way would be to drill a small hole right through the dent,,then bevel  countersink it to the edge of the dent. Make a 'tack' out of brass wire/rod,you'll have to mushroom the head of the tack and form it to the countersink you cut.
Then put a point on the tack and a few barbs on the post to keep it from backing out once hammered in.
CArefully hammer it into place,,you may need to drill a slightly undersize guide hole for it in a hardwood stock. The head driven down to just seat in the countersink you cut. Then face off the excess brass tack. It should cover and fill the dent area and blend in with the surrounding brass plate. Don't hammer it in too far or you'll create another dent around the tack head!

These are a couple ways I'd consider if I couldn't or didn't want to pull the plate out and pound the dent out to fix it.

[R I Jerolmon]

Well, I kind of figured I was up the creek on this one. Did not know that cold blue can be used to antique brass. Any other sugestions on antiquing brass.

Thanks.

  Birchwood Casey makes Brass Black however black powder residue (dirty cleaning patches) does a real good job.

[bob in the woods]

I think the main point here is that you need to remove the inlay if you want to "fix" it.  There's no way you can remove that dimple while it's on the gun.