De De: I just finished making a silver rattle for my grandson. I
used some of the steel shot from my tumbler. Don’t use too much
or they won’t have room to rattle around. Have fun, Frances
Frances…This sounds like something I should be doing for
soon to arrive first grandchildren (notice the plural ). To make
a decent sound I would think that the rattle should be hard
rather than annealed. How do you solder the two sections that
contain the shot together and keep them hard ? or how do you
harden them later ?
Hi Sol, All the best for the imminent event (events?). If you
make the rattles out of sterling silver rather than fine silver
you shouldn’t have any problems. If this was a problem, you could
always make the rattley bit out of, say, nickel silver and
enclose that in a fine silver design. With best wishes, Rex from
Oz
Hi, Sol: I hope you get to see your grandchildren more often
than I see my grandson. I don’t think annealing was a problem for
me. I use easy solder and a thick gauge of silver, such as 20
gauge or 18. I put the lower part of the sphere into the pumice.
It doesn’t take long. I also did some engraving afterward. By
the way, the parts get a lot of hardening in the hydraulic press.
Frances