PLATED MANUFACTURE 



583 



face of the stamp-hammer has a plate of iron, called the licker-up, fitted into it, about 

 the area of the die. Whenever the lead has become solid, the hammer is raised to a 



1623- 



1628 



certain height, and dropped down upon it ; and as the under face of the licker-up is 

 made rough like a rasp, it firmly adheres to the lead, so as to lift it afterwards with 

 the hammer. The plated metal is now placed over the die, and the hammer, mounted 

 with its lead, is let fall repeatedly upon it, till the impression on the metal is complete. 

 If the vessel to be struck be of any considerable depth, two or three dies may be used 

 of progressive sizes in succession. But it occasionally happens that when the vessel 

 has a long conical neck, recourse must be had to an auxiliary operation, called punch- 

 ing. See the embossing punches,/^. 1626. These are made of cast steel, with their 

 hollows turned out in the lathe. The pieces, a b, are of lead. The punching is per- 

 formed by a series of these tools, of different sizes, beginning with the largest, and 

 ending with the least. By this means a hollow cone, 3 or 4 inches deep, and 1 inch in 

 diameter, may be raised out of a flat plate. These punches are struck with a hand- 

 hammer also, for small articles of too great delicacy for the drop. Indeed, it fre- 

 quently happens that one part of an article is executed by the stamp and another by 

 the hand. 



Cylindrical and conical vessels are mostly formed by bending and soldering. The 

 bending is performed on blocks of wood, with wooden mallets ; but the machine so 

 much used by the tin-smiths, to form their tubes and cylindric vessels (see the end 

 sections, figs. 1627, 1628), might be employed with advantage. This consists of 

 3 iron rollers fixed in an iron frame. A, B, c, are the three cylinders, and a, b, c, d, 

 the riband or sheet of metal passed through them to receive the cylindrical or conical 

 curvature. The upper roller, A, can be raised or lowered at pleasure, in order to 

 modify the diameter of the tube ; and when one end of the roller is higher than the other 

 the conical curvature is given. The edges of the plated cylinders or cones are 

 soldered with an alloy composed of silver and brass. An alloy of silver and copper 

 is somewhat more fusible ; but that of brass and silver answers best for plated metal, 

 the brass being in very small proportion, lest the colour of the plate be affected. 

 Calcined borax mixed with sandiver (the salt skimmed from the pots of crown glass) 

 is used along with the alloy, in the act of soldering. The seam of the plated metal 

 being smeared with that saline mixture made into a pap with water, and the bits of 

 laminated solder, cut small with scissors, laid on, the seam is exposed to the flame of 

 an oil blowpipe, or to that of charcoal urged by bellows in a little forge-hearth, till 

 the solder melts and flows evenly along the junction. The use of the sandiver seems 

 to be to prevent the iron wire that binds the plated metal tube from being soldered 

 tx>it. 



Mouldings are sometimes formed upon the edges of vessels, which are not merely 

 ornamental, but give strength and stiffness. These are fashioned by an instrument 

 called a swage, represented in figs. 1629, 1630. The part A lifts up by a joint, and 

 the metal to be swaged is placed between the dies, as shown in the figures ; the tail, b, 



