I nicked a delicate border....

AndrosCreations

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Hi Everyone,

I'm happy to say I've been able to work on more complex things lately... Thats the good news as it wasnt but a half a year ago I wasnt working at all.

The bad news isn't that bad... Infact it's downright trivial... I nicked a delicate border on a Morgan dollar I'm working on and I'm kind of at a loss. I could try to inlay some silver, but I could potentially botch things.. To make matters worse, there are impurities throughout this coin.

Sorry for the close up photo thats fuzzy.
 

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AndrosCreations

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Any suggestion? To deep to burnish out.

I may have to try to place an element 'over' the nick... but its surrounded by deeply engraved borders... I make mistakes like this often but Ive never been at such a loss...
 

Marrinan

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Remember engraving is supposed to be viewed with the naked eye. how big is the nick. Post the whole coin and will try to find it in actual size. Fred
 

JakeW

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Having worked with a laser welder for the last 13 years it would be an easy fix. Silver is more difficult than other precious metals but in the hands of a skilled person can be done with some clean up afterwards.
 

AndrosCreations

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Thanks for the comments so far... Unfortunately I dont have access to a laser welder. If there are any other ideas...

I'll try to get a better shot of it in context, Fred.
 

Dave London

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Yep or someone with a PUK welder.
Andy glad to see you are getting better, I for one miss your work and videos . take care Dave
 

Brian Marshall

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If the laser welder/PUK option is off the table for whatever reason... and you will need someone with years of experience to try it this way (coin silver is not friendly to welders) - you can try the following:


Try taking some clean chips cut from this coin, or take another identical coin and a coarse file and make some filings over a piece of paper.

Put a coupla very small mounds of these filings in depressions cut into a charcoal block, flux with a little borax and slowly - with a bushy soft flame create some tiny round "shot" and back off off before the shimmering metal boils or oxidizes. Do NOT use a "hard", hot, oxidizing flame.

Experiment until you can control the size of the resulting shot. When you have a half dozen (easy to lose the little buggers) about the size you need, pickle them to get the flux and oxides off.

Very very carefully choose and drill a shallow hole where the "error" occured and again very carefully - inlay the piece of shot and trim.


OR, if you are not a smith, you can try sawing out a spiral from the outside edge of an annealed duplicate coin. In effect making a spiral of square wire.

Cut a section of this square wire, straighten it and hold it in a pin vise and file it into round wire of the size you'd need. Find the right drill bit, drill a shallow hole, undercut if you have a Hartz bur small enough and inlay as usual... (Stand the wire in the hole, which should be a press fit. Cut to length leaving some extra to hammer on and expand into the undercut.

I'm not sure I would try to draw the square wire down to round in a drawplate, you don't need much - but it might be another solution.

You could also anneal and roll (or even pound) some sheet out of an identical coin (or shot) and cut a very small sheet inlay. Of all of these methods, I would probably choose the square wire rounded in a pin vise method myself.


Brian

The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it. – Chinese Proverb
 
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Southern Custom

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What Brian said. I was going to suggest laser welder but the method Brian speaks of is about as good as it gets. Simple, clean and doesn't require too much technical ability that you wouldn't already have. Done properly you'll never know it was repaired.
Layne
 

AndrosCreations

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Greetings my friends...

I really appreciate all the advice.

After I did it, I came upstairs and asked my wife to see if she could find the spot and she couldn't. But she's not as particular when it comes to these things.

I went down to my shop and staired at it through the scope.., I lit my torch and balled up some tiny pieces of silver intending to inlay one in the spot after I drilled and undercut it... but I chickened out and just ended up burnishing it and moving some metal around.

It turned out fine.

I'll post a visual sometime next week since I made such a fuss here.
 

AndrosCreations

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dlilazteca - Thank you for the compressor video... I purchased it a couple weeks ago and have been pleased with it thus far.

Dave London - Its so nice seeing you here posting. Thank you for your encouraging comments as it means allot coming from another metal scratcher!

Brian - You gave great advice. It was one of the only things I could think of. Have you seen the metal inlay tutorial that Dam so kindly put in the 'tips' section? It sounds allot like your technique. Also, I wonder how you're doing after your run-in with the "flocks" antibiotic that damaged your tendons. I hope youve recovered.

Thank you all very much once again!!
 

Brian Marshall

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Somehow I missed your question Andy... (in regard to the "Health Topic - but related to engraving..." thread I posted back on 4/14/14)


The Floroquinolone poisoning is now in it's 9th month. The tendons have improved, but each month has brought some new and different damage.

From what I understand, this can continue out to 18 months, so I am only halfway through at this point :(

Some of the damage is permanent, the hearing loss & tinnitus for example - and the damage that occured to body parts that had received radiation treatment or surgeries in the past.

Those who recover best are under 40 and without complicated medical history - I don't fit in that group...


I've had to do all of my own research and come up with my own list of supplements and therapies to aid the reconstruction of the damaged mitochondria.

There IS information out there. I've spent 9 months researching this.

Neither the doctors (nor the pharmacists) are very forthcoming about any of it. They all avoid it. I've seen 9 of them to date. No joy. No help.

The physical therapists I've been sent to have had no clue at all as to what they were dealing with, one of them started by hooking me up to a TENS unit!


I have "recovered" from worse events than this in the past, and both times it was me that did the research, designed the therapy and carried it all through.


None of this should have happened at all. There were mistakes made at 3 different levels. There were no less than 6 contraindications to the use of Levaquin in my case.

Having gone through this recent event, I can tell you from personal experience that our "medical system" here in the U.S. is currently broken far worse than our government!


Brian


As a side note... for all of you who may be affected in the future... (which will include me) 3 of the 9 doctors I saw, had plainly posted signs in their waiting rooms. "WE DO NOT ACCEPT OBAMACARE INSURANCE." How did that promise go? "If you like your doctor, you will get to keep him?"
 
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AndrosCreations

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Brian - That's aweful. I think those antibiotics should only be used if the patient is in danger of losing their life and its the only option (and even that may be being too generous).

In the Lyme community many people have been flox'd (however its spelled). My doctor wanted me on an antibiotic in that class and I told him I just wouldn't do it. ...and I was even in very bad shape at that time.

I'm really sorry to hear that youre dealing with that and really hope that there arent too many other complications with that stuff bouncing around your system. Another friends daughter is in a wheel chair after her run in with Cipro or whatever it was... and it was prescribed for something "trivial". Its criminal... and its also not 'rare' as they say. I'm sure you know that forums are filled with people who have serious damage.

...as for the Obama-care... That doesnt surprise me at all. My wife and I are both chronically ill and we haven't had insurance for a while. Our life is expensive and it will only get more expensive when we have to shell out $1,000+ yearly because we can't afford insurance. <end rant>
 
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