doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Soldering question?

Has anyone had any experience with soft soldering/ sodering german silver trigger gaurds, I am doing a repair on a belgium double and it has a trigger gaurd with a break on screw hole of guard. should I under plate the guard and soft solder or do you have any other thoughts....

Are you sure it is nickle silver? If so, I'd suggest you consider silver solder/brazing the part.

German silver is real soft, I have never seen a trigger guard made from it. Perhaps it iron highly polished???
bill

How severe is the break- and does this "Belgie" have a two screw trigger guard, or a single screw trigger guard. I am curious as what might have caused the break in the first place. Is this a pistol or POW shaped grip, or a straight hand grip with the longer tang and guard iron?

Usual proceedure is to spark test if the guard on your gun will hold a magnet-on the back in an "no show" spot- if the guard will not hold a magnet, all bets are off, and I'd superglue it with some scotch tape for backing, punch a drift through ther hole in the scotch tape to allow the set screw to pass through, reinstall and fuggetaboutitalready!!

The whole gun has been done in german silver hardware from buttstock to nose cap. Here are a few pictures of where it is broken on the trigger bend..

OK, silver solder it. If, for some reason, it doesn't hold first time, silver solder on a backer plate, drill the screw hole through the backer, and gouge out the inletting to allow room for the backer plate. You can make the backer fairly thick for extra strength, too. The silver solder will work even if the guard is steel (except it will not blue).

How did you determine that the metal is nickle silver? Photos aren't always dependable, but I see some suspiciously iron looking discoloration in the photos.

It is Nickle silver Im sorry if the pictures appear to show rust, is just the lighting affects in the picture.... I guess my next question is how close the melting tempature of nickle silver is to the melting point of silver solder?....

Having used a bit of German Silver in my day....I have a hard time believing the German's used soft silver ..(or any silver)...THEN COUNTERSUNK the holes that deep FOR A TRIGGER GUARD...??.....If it was true soft silver, one would think the engraving should and would have disappeared long ago......If it was mine, I would have the metal tested for alloy content.....then move forward.....the DEEP countersink is the give-away for me.....even if it was nickle silver, the trigger guard would have multiple ring dents on the sides....as with any soft metal.....

Best,

PA24 German silver is just a trade name for a group of copper nickel and zinc alloys, the color can vary from white to nickle in color, and range in all hardnesses depending on preperation, some even commonly being used in watch springs.. German silver is graded according to its nickel content with "Extra white metal" being the highest grade. While this trigger guard is not of a high grade it has about the same tinsel strenght as a brass trigger gaurd.. While being worried about melting temps I used 95/5 in the repair and seemed to work amazingly well thanks for the help guys...

Nice looking job. Did you opt for a backer? There is plenty of range between nickle silver alloy melting point (you can figure well over 1600 F) and the lower temperature silver braze alloys (around 1200 F). Considering that the guard "should" have low strength requirements, 95/5 solder (95% tin 5% antimony)at around 14,000 psi tensil "should" be OK. If it breaks again, resolder with a steel backer.