I bought some 16 gauge Brittania, which is pewter, I’m pretty sure. It came as a 10 inch circle, which is great because I don’t need to saw it out.
The 1960 era book I have on forming pewter indicates that one need not anneal it. I started to try and form it yesterday and it seemed pretty hard to me…harder than 14 gauge copper which I’d been working with.
Do any of you have experience with forming vessels with Brittania? Should I anneal it? Also, what about pickle? An lastly,is there a patnia I could apply?
From what I know, Brittania is a pewter alloy that’s designed to be harder and shinier. It’s different from regular pewter, which is softer and easier to form. I’ve worked with regular pewter, but not Brittania. I don’t think you can anneal pewter, but I might be wrong about that.
Here’s an old thread from Lisa Slovis who wrote a book about pewter working. It looks like her book is out of print, but you can track Lisa down from her website. I’ll bet she’d be happy to answer any questions that you have. She’s a really nice person.
My understanding is that Brittania silver is alloy of 95.8% pure silver and 4.2% copper. Modern pewter is an alloy of tin, copper, and antimony, without silver.
It seems that there is Brittania silver and Brittania pewter, which makes it confusing. You can find all kinds of modern and antique silver pieces hallmarked with 958. Here is Cookson Gold’s list of silver alloys:
