Hi all,
Does anybody (particularly UK people) have any experience of the
“Brilliante” silver that Cookson (UK bullion dealer) have recently
launched?
The best I can do for a web page for their datasheet is from
Google’s cache, and is:
www.cooksongold.com/technical/datasheets/Brilliante.pdf
It looks as if they’ve removed the PDF from their webpage again.
From the datasheet, it appears to be 93.5% Silver, Tin, Zinc, Indium
and Copper, and with a melting point range of 890-950 C (unlike
Argentium, that’s higher than regular Sterling).
I heard about this having asked about tarnish and firestain
resistant alloys, such as Argentium. Apparently they had difficulties
licensing the patent, so have gone with this alloy instead, which
apparently has similar properties. Apparently the alloy can also be
age hardened – at 300 C for 4-6 hours, and has Britannia-like
properties with regard to deformation before requiring annealing (80%
reduction).
Casting looks a little strange (although I’m not yet equipped for
that anyway, beyond a little delft clay casting), as the datasheet
claims that the alloy should be liquid for 4-5 minutes before
casting, while “minimising zinc fuming”. I’m not really sure how I’d
be supposed to minimise that!
I’ll probably get a little of this to play with – but I’d love to
know if any more experienced users have any comments on the alloy!
Many thanks,
Ian