Fine Silver Inlay

rhenrichs

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Can fine silver be used for inlay on a gun which will be blued after the engraving is done?

Roger
 

Marcus Hunt

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Hi Roger,

I don't see why not. Many times I've inlayed silver into iron-sights for rifles that have then been blacked (UK)/blued (US) using hot caustic solution and they've come out fine. The only problem you may have is using cold-blue which contains nitric acid. This of course will oxidize the silver making silver nitrate but a bit of buffing will get rid of that, but then you'll lose the blue too if you're not careful.

Marcus
 

rhenrichs

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Thanks Marcus,
I tried a test with cold blue and found that it surface discolored the silver.
Didn't know what a caustic hot blue would do to silver. Of course silver will tarnish if left exposed to the atmosphere. If I do inlay the gun with silver I thought that when I had the gun blued I would have them coat it baking lacquer after the bluing process was completed.

Roger
 

Brian Hochstrat

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Just out of curiosity, why do silver instead of white gold? Gold is nicer to work with and does'nt have the tarnish issue. But, if you really want silver, Rio Grande carries Argentinium silver which isn't supposed to tarnish I have not used much of it to see how easy it is to work with, but it may be worth giving it a try.
 

Brian Marshall

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White gold containing nickel will harden almost instantly... could be done, but why would you want to work that hard - to get a yellowish white inlay?

Easier to use are the palladium white gold alloys, if the greyish/white color doesn't put you off.

Pure platinum is also somewhat grey. The "whitest" metal we inlay with is still fine silver.

In silver alloys - Argentium works fine, we've been using it for about 3 years now. Also a silver/platinum alloy from Precious Metals West works very well for inlay purposes. Both of these are tarnish "resistant". There is no such thing as a tarnish proof alloy - at least not yet...

The silicon and zinc bearing "firescale resistant" silver alloys are a lot harder to use. Both are designed for casting purposes, and the only time we had to inlay pieces of it - it cracked from the final hammer blows...

I cannot speak for what results you will get from putting these alloys in the blueing tank. Our products are seldom blued, but I remember one company asking for a heat blue. That worked fine. I'd be very hesitant to put a zinc alloy into a chemical blue. Might contaminate the bath?

Brian Marshall
 
Last edited:
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Nov 24, 2006
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Owego, NY
Why not inlay fine silver (100% pure)? I believe the alloys added to silver create the tarnish problem. I have a coil of fine silver laying around my shop for ten years and it doesn't show any tarish.
 

Mike Bissell

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I have gone over the silver or gold inlays and clean it up again after bluing or when the silver tarnishes by using one of those pink pencil erasers.
 

Glenn

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I have hot blued barreled actions with silver inlays many times and never had any problems at all.
In all cases the fine silver eventualy oxidizes. If I just rub the inlay with my fingers the silver regains it true color. Any abrasives used including erasers will eventualy abrade the blued surface.
I'm sure there are waxes or polymers that can be hand rubbed over the silver to prevent oxidation. Sam will know!:cool:
 

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