PROBABLY there is no article of table or of other household use in the
production of which so little of machine working is employed. Almost
all the work on solid silver spoons is hand work; the exceptions are
the rolling of the ingot into plates, and the production of spoons with
ornamentation in relief, which is produced by recessed patterns on the
rolls.
The material for spoons is coin silver obtained from the Government
mints in ingots, or from trade for old silver, or from the use of
current coin. This is melted over a charcoal fire in plumbago crucibles
to a certain heat, known to the adept by the appearance of the surface
of the molten metal; it is poured into castiron moulds, forming bars of
about seventy ounces each.
These bars are heated over a forge fire of charcoal and worked on the
anvil by hammer and sledge, precisely as iron or steel is worked, or
are rolled into plates or ribbons. Occasional annealings are necessary
to prevent cracking.
The ribbon for the ordinary teaspoon is four and a half inches long
by three eighths of an inch wide. When rolled, a blank of two and a
quarter inches is lengthened to four and a half inches, to thin it down
to spoon thickness. Before rolling or hammering, silver is very nearly
as soft as lead; but with these mechanical processes it can be made
hard and rigid. Good springs can be made of silver hammered or rolled.
To form the bowl of the teaspoon, the bar, of three eighths of an inch
wide and less than three thirty-seconds of an inch thick, is hammered
flat on an anvil with a crowning face until the workman has spread it
into an oval, which is much thinner in the middle than at the edges, as
the edges are to receive the bulk of the wear. The handles are formed
also by the hammer.
The curvature of the bowl is produced by repeated "coaxing" blows by
a steel punch and a die of cast composition of lead and tin. No file
dressing is employed on the faces of the spoon; only the edges are
file-dressed to form. From the anvil and the die the spoons come to
hand-smoothing with Scotch gray stones and polishing by stiff brushes,
generally revolving brushes charged with "grits" and oil. Burnishing is
the finish of spoons as of all bright silver goods.