How much heat can Rhino Horn handle?
 

I need to re-attach a silver crossguard on a shamshir. I have decided that i want to solder it to the grip straps. I have seen it done that way on other similar swords. Fell free to speak up if you think that there is a better way.

A professional golsmith that I talked to said, no problem he can do that. But, he also asked how much heat the horn can handle, since the solder will reach 800 degree celsius. I have no idea, anyone that knows or can point me to a source that has that information? Also, im like 90%, sure its rhino horn, but could you look at the pictures and confirm?

Many thanks for your time.

Was not soldered to the cross guard with any original

Rhino horn is a lump of congealed hair. Doubt it will not be damaged.
Why wouldn't you try
https://www.walmart.com/ip/6X-DEVCON...5-ML/111524404

or something from the family, such as

https://www.walmart.com/ip/10240-Pla...vcon/700864821

It is used in metal industry, holds like nothing else.

You will ruin that horn if a jeweler puts heat to it

Thanks for your replies! Thats why I ask first :D I will look into other methods, that plastic steel looks promising.

The steel stuff will be safer... Heat will melt it like butter... It is Rhino :shrug:

You can NEVER silver solder onto horn or any organic matter. Even soft solder is too hot (and is much lower in temperature).

No offense, but your jeweler friend is nuts! (I too make jewelry and so lots of silver soldering).

Jose,
Aren’t you too harsh on the jeweler?
He said he could solder it, but wanted to know first whether horn will survive it.
IMHO, he was perfect.

OK. The hilt is rhino. Heat will not MELT it, just BURN IT. I have broken bits and pieces of rhino horn from messed up Ethiopian swords, so I decided to try. If you try to burn one of your own fingernail (after you clip it.....) you will get the same result. It chars more than burns. You can scrape off the charred surface and re-polish it. This is not what one wants to do to a good piece of rhino horn. A good epoxy will do a better job. By the way, there are epoxies designed for jewellery making. Cheers, Ron

Any horn will burn. If he knows nothing at all about horn, then I guess that might be forgivable. But that would also mean that he was somewhat narrow in his scope of experience. At that type of heat, anything organic would burn.

I do apologize if I came across caustic.

You could do it using a puk welding machine.. I have one ideal for this type of job. It is welding through 10x optics with a needle electrode. Expensive kit and a steep learning curve. An even better way is laser welding but I do not have a laser welding unit and your job might not fit in the laser unit. I live in the UK. I would find a jeweller or silversmith in your area that is using a puk welding unit near you should be straight forward. I better pic would help.

https://www.bettsmetalsales.com/jewe...uk-welding/puk

Again, thank you for taking the time to help me with this. The Jeweller I spoke to did mention a laser welding machine when i asked him about another restoration that I want help with, but he said that laser welding equipment is expensive. He did know a good jeweller in Stockholm that had one and could help me with that one. Im going down to Stockholm in the spring, so I might let him weld this one to.
I will have to have a good think about this one. That plastic steel is a good option to, but I liked the idea of soldering since it can be un-done, as you all know epoxys are not easy to remove once hardened.

Ideally I guess you would want to restore the item using historically correct methods if possible? I think I have read posts here about using traditional resins to re-attach grips etc.

You may want to check out Paraloid B-72 (http://www.conservation-resources.co...roducts_id=600) which is supposedly used by professionals at museums to restore antiques. It’s favoured as it’s less visible, degrades less, and is supposedly reversible. I have found it more difficult than expected to work with myself. I would try buying the glue tube version rather than the pellets.

Yes worth doing properly. Done well would not look any different to. silver soldering. Someone in Stockholm will have either a PUK weld or Laser unit. They will probably want a low 3 figure sum for this rather precious job.

This would definitely be a better option.

Guys:

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Ian.

Hi
I know nothing about laser welding having never looked at it before this morning when I watched a you tube video or two
Will it not leave a bead of weld at the join of the 2 metals which will look wrong
And from my experience your eye will be drawn to the repair every time you pick up the item

The proper way would be to remove the handles and solder on the inside as it was originally made as far as I know but I might be incorrect on the manafacturing process , would this be possible

It looks to be a lovely sword and you are a brave man to do working on it

Can the cross guard be wedged in place with spacers of balsa, this will be totally reversible and as the sword is now a decorative item the repair will not detract

With this welding job you have one go at it and the people doing the job are not expert at the repair job, quiet a scary situation

Regards

Ken

Ken, this would only be done by experienced crafts people. This job would be on the micro scale even if you had to feed in silver wire to fill large gaps it would not look like the weld on an international oil fed pipe.