PORTIONS OF STOVES.
Hancock, to show how successfully it was possible to imitate, by this process, the finest and most richlyembossed plate. He employed it in the manufacture of candlesticks, teapots, waiters, and most of the olddecorations of the sideboard, which, previously to his time, had been formed of wrought silver. The importanceof the discovery now began to be fully understood; various companies were formed; workmen were easilyprocured from among the ingenious mechanics of Sheffield; while the streams in the neighbourhood furnishedopportunities of erecting mills for rolling out the metals. Birmingham early obtained a share in this lucrativemanufacture;* but the honour of the invention belongs to Sheffield, as it is supposed to stand unrivalled inthe extent to which the manufacture is carried, and the elegance and durability of its productions.”
The method of “plating” metal discovered by Bolsover is as follows:—An ingot of pure copper, orof copper alloyed with brass,f is first made. Upon one surface of this ingot, which is twenty inches longby three inches broad, and one inch and a half thick, a sheet of silver, about one-fortieth of the thicknessof the ingot itself, is laid; the two are tied together with wire, touched at their edges with a little borax,to act as a flux, and exposed to the heat of a furnace, by which they are firmly united. “This compoundingot is afterwards laminated in a rolling mill to a thin sheet; and the sheets so formed are brought intoornamental forms by stamping, punching, hammering, and other mechanical processes; the copper foundationforming the substance of the article, and the silver side the exterior surface.”* Articles which are termed“ double-plated,” are formed of plates to which silver has in like manner been affixed on both sides.
The operations carried on in a plating factory may be distributed into six or seven departments, which,in large establishments, are conducted separately, several of them embracing other subdivisions of skill andlabour. Of these die-sinking is the first, and perhaps the most important. The dies employed for stampingthe metal into the requisite forms are infinitely varied, more than twenty being required for an object sosimple as an ordinary bed-candlestick; and being necessarily of steel, they are very costly. Besides theoperation of stamping; pierce-working, or punching, is employed in the formation of some articles. Brazieringconsists in soldering the different parts of certain objects together, and hammering others into the desired shapes;and this department involves a great amount of mechanical skill. Candlestick-making is another distinct branchof the plating-trade, and one in which the lathe is the principal instrument employed. The articles, whenformed by the processes we have thus mentioned, are finished by chasing, embossing, and burnishing.
The beautiful appearance of plated articles, and their economy, soon brought them into extensive use; but,for a considerable time, they were liable to a serious objection; after some time the silver surface wore off themore exposed portions, and the copper became visible; or, as the workmen expressed it, “Alexander showedhis face.” To remedy this evil, Mr. Roberts, of Sheffield, obtained a patent in 1824, for a mode of preparingand affixing to such articles what are now familiar to all as “solid silver edges.” By this process a sheetof silver is rolled very thin, and stamped into the form of the various ornamental edges and other parts ofcandlesticks, &c., the hollow behind is filled with solder, and the edges are then soldered on to the goods.
Whilst the manufacture we have thus described has placed a beautiful and excellent material within thereach of persons of moderate means, the humbler classes have been equally benefited by the introduction of“ Britannia Metal,” which has entirely superseded the pewter so long employed for domestic purposes. Thiscomposition is remarkable for its lightness, ductility, and cheapness. It was first employed on a largescale about the year 1770, by Mr. Jessopp and Mr. Hancock, of Sheffield, and its ingredients are thusdescribed by an excellent authority :§—Three and a half cwt. of best block tin, twenty-eight pounds of martialregulus of antimony, eight pounds of copper, and eight pounds of brass. It is cast into ingots, and thenrolled into sheets, from whence an immense variety of articles—teapots, coffee-pots, candlesticks, measures andother vessels, forks, spoons, &c.—are produced with the utmost facility from cast-iron, or even brass dies,worked in a similar way to the steel dies used for plated goods, as well as by a peculiar operation calledspinning, or in the lathe. The material is one of the most tractable of substances to work from the sheet,as well as one that runs most readily in moulds; spoons being cast from brass moulds by thousands.Moreover, it is cut most freely by the turner. Such a combination of advantages fully accounts for itsuniversal popularity and usefulness.
* We have elsewhere observed (“ Journal of Design,” vol. ii. p. 11) that the plate-workers of Sheffield met with formidable rivals in the lateMr. Boulton and Sir Edward Thomason, as they do in the successor of the latter, Mr. Collis.
f With pure copper fine silver alone can be used; whereas with copper and brass, standard silver is sufficiently fine, and the alloy may beoperated upon by the lathe when pure copper may not. + Dodd’s “British Manufactures,”—Metals, p. 196.
§ Mr. Holland, author of the “Treatise on the Progressive Improvement and Present State of Manufactures in Metal,” vol. iii. p. 103.