Hi… hopefully someone wise in the world of pewter an help me. I just bought some Brittania silver, which is a form of high end ( I guess) pewter for making bowls and vessels. I don’t think it has any lead in it.
Two questions:
1 Do I need to anneal it?
2) what kind of pickle should I use?
Thanks!
Metallic tin is nontoxic unless ingested in large amounts at once… (no one does that!)…antimony is only mildly toxic. EPA /OSHA regulations require no more than 0.5 mg per cubic meter of air exposure per 8 hours… inhaled fumes cause minor respiratory and also eye irritation. Chronic exposure has more health consequences… Volatilization of antimony should not occur since the melting point of pewter is far lower than the boiling point of antimony…common sense ventilation and washing hands before eating is enough to keep people safe. Working with lead free pewter should not be a problem for home studio work with some common sense nor a problem for industrial scale manufacturers of pewter items as they have to follow OSHA rules.
antimony is mildly toxic with exposure limits being set by OSHA…(see my other post) silver toxicity is very rare and mainly due to the chronic ingestion of colloidal silver ( blue man syndrome)… Arsenic as arsenate and arsenite (As+3, As+4) is toxic…lead and copper arsenates (Paris Green) as an allpurpose insecticide/fungicide was banned in 1960…
Lead can be detected with a home test… I found old lead paint by dissolving a chip in nitric acid, then adding enough ammonia to neutralize and precipitate white lead…None of this is a concern with studio work with adequate ventilation.
pewter is soft, ductile, doesn’t harden with shaping. annealing is not necessary and risks melting it. it’s also resistant to oxidation so there’s no point in pickling…being that pewter is soft, has a low melting point to begin with. Some alloys will eventually work harden, but setting it in a warm oven at 120-140F will anneal it…