Coin Silver Sight

[David R. Pennington]

I need a wider front blade on my .40. When you are using coin silver do you hammer out the mint marks or file flat? Do you anneal? Does silver anneal like brass?

[webradbury]

I aneal 90% silver coins by heating to red and quenching in water. I then hammer them out and file/polish. I’ve never done Brass so I don’t know if it is similar. Will

[Craig Wilcox]

David, I once made a sight from a Brit 3-penny coin.  I just cut it off right below the "3", so you could see the number.

I had fun as a kid when Dad was stationed in London, and the teachers were trying to teach me to multiply and divide pounds, shillings, and pence.  And the Brits did have 1/4 and 1/2 pence coins.  The pennies were abou the size of a silver dollar, but made of copper.


Good luck - you are sure going to like your silver front sight.

[bama]

David you can anneal as mentioned. With silver you only have to heat to a dull red and then quench in water. Once annealed you can hammer it out but you will find it work hardens pretty quick, so you may have to anneal it a couple of times. You can double it once you have it flattened out to make it thicker. Or you can silver solder two pieces together to make it thicker. I you know someone with a roller, have them flatten it out for you. You get a much more uniform piece of silver.

[jerrywh]

   To anneal silver it is not a good idea to quench when red hot as it sometimes cracks. If you heat it red hot let it cool to a black heat then quench. I have about any kind and dimension of silver if you need some. Just sold all my coins but have a lot of sterling and pure silver. Some coin silver.

[G_T]

I'll speak just for myself - I hate to see people trash old coins just for the silver. It is not like silver is not readily available today. To each his own though.

For annealing, do not do it in a brightly lit location. You'll end up heating it hotter than desired. Hot silver absorbs oxygen, gets more porous, and if an alloy, oxidizes more. It helps to coat the silver in borax or boric acid before heating. This reduces the oxidiation. But then you need to remove the glass-like coating. That is called pickling. Salt water and vinegar mix will do that job cheaply enough.

It helps to do the heating on a charcoal block, and to use a reducing flame.

Or if someone wanted enough sheet of a particular alloy I could probably produce it, though I wouldn't be cheap as it takes a fair bit of time to make it. Cheaper to just order sheet from www.riogrande.com or similar.

Gerald

PS - https://www.apmex.com/category/25820/90-silver-by-type might be of interest for non-historical silver coins.

[Blacksmoke]

David:  Just remember that coin silver is not pure silver - it has a small copper content such as sterling,  5% - 7%. This was done to give coins a longer pocket life.  For the gun maker it means that coin silver will tarnish more readily than pure. 

Hugh Toenjes

[G_T]

Coin silver was generally 90% silver, for US coins of that era, IIRC. It got turned into utensils etc. Tableware from Europe was considered better, perhaps in large part because it was made of Sterling. Sterling is 92.5% silver or higher. Brittania silver was 95.83% silver. Eventually, when silver was being mined in quantity in the continent, America shifted over to using Sterling as well.

In all these cases, the balance was predominantly copper though it did not have to be. Copper added hardness as fine silver is pretty soft. The more copper, the harder. Unfortunately the more copper, the easier it tarnishes and the more you have to protect it when heating.

Gerald

[PPatch]

Yes coin silver will tarnish, in time, but it is no big deal since all you have to do to brighten it back up is swipe your thumb over the back of of the sight several times and it will look like it was when you made it.  In other words the eventual tarnishing isn't a big deal.

dave