Nickle Silver buttplate...

[Nightwind]

Finally got the rest of the parts needed for the Lancaster I'm building for the wife. The stock had to be shortened to fit her, so of course the buttplate is too large and will be resized to fit. I'd like to take some of the curve out of it. Can the nickle silver buttplate be hammered like brass to fit the stock or is it too brittle? Turning myself loose with a hammer can be a disastrous thing!

 

[Zonie]

German Silver (which doesn't contain any silver at all) can be hammered like brass however it is a lot tougher material.

It is composed of about 50% Copper, 30% Zinc and 20% Nickel.
Brass is about 75% Copper and 25% Zinc.

The addition of the Nickel not only gives it its silver color, but makes it a lot harder to polish or bend.

I don't have any data to support me, but Copper and Nickle both tend to work harden when bent. I would assume an alloy of them would also have this tendency.
Work hardening basically means the material will get harder when it is repeatably bent. Harder equates to being less ductile and more easily broken.

The bottom line IMO, is sure, you can bend it like brass, but if you repeatedly bend it, it may crack.

 

[bob1961]

you might try to use a torch to heat it....my old boss that i worked for doing iron railings some times we use brass for the hand rail and to work with it we heated it so it didn't break....might look into it before going on my suggestion....but i think thats why we heated it....might work in your case also...................................bob

 

[robert garner]

havent worked with this metal, but copper& brass work hardens;
heating it softens it up again"annealing" those malcontents who fer some degenerate reason insist on puttin powder an ball in brass supositories often do this to save case necks
hope you have a sample to experiment with discoloration may be a problem with heat
robert garner

 

[Terry Zboril]

To anneal/soften brass, (and I suppose Nickle Silver), heat to dull red and dunk in cold water. Just the opposite of steel. You need to do this after every couple of bendings.
If your Buttplate is sand cast, you would anneal before you would even start trying to peen, and use a "soft" hammer (rawhide mallet or brass hammer), with a light touch.

Also after cutting down the plate to fit the smaller stock,be sure to thin the "edge" view of the buttplate back to about 1/16",so as not to look "chunky".

Also remember that ,(as far as I have seen), German/Nickle silver was not available till after the 1830's.

Regards,
Terry

 

[Stumpkiller]

Also remember that ,(as far as I have seen), German/Nickle silver was not available till after the 1830's.

Good observation. I just tried hunting up some info and all I can get is : "first formulated by E.A. Geitner, a German Chemist, in the early 19th century."

 

[Nightwind]

Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.

Terry, I'm not trying to be PC on that Lancaster for the wife, I'm just trying to build a pretty rifle that will look like it belongs to a lady and be a good shooter. Oh, BTW, Beautiful job on that Lancaster at TOW.

 

[Terry Zboril]

Bill,
I didn't mean to sneeze in your gravy. Years back, I, too, built a NSilver mounted rifle for the wifey "Bluecheek", which she regularly kicks my ass with at voos and has killed about a dozen deer with.

You couldn't take it away from her for a free credit card from a Martha Stewart catalog.

Thanks for the compliment on the rifle. I think it has since sold.
Regards,
Terry

 

[shunka]

Howdy Nightwind
From personal experience, I can attest to the fact that you can bend it - I have hot-forged nickel-silver bronze bar stock when making knife guards. You can use a mapp torch to heat it up to a nice *dull* red, and then it is very much like forging very high carbon steel- lots of pounding for small movement. You must be careful not to heat it too hot, or the bronze will actually crumble. When completed, you will need to anneal by heating to dull red and quenching in water. You might want to get a piece of nickle-silver bar stock to practice on first...

best regards
shunka

 

[Nightwind]

Thanks for all your help, I'm really enjoying this learning experience. Since the triggerguard only needed to be bent 3/8 inch, I did it by hand (and alot of rear puckering, facial wrinching and tongue biting) with no heat and the darn thing's still in one piece!

Thanks again, the wife's rifle is coming along beautifully!