Occasionally a key is damaged to the point that it breaks. At this point it must be Silver soldered back together in the event that the key cannot be replaced more easily or cheaply.
Once the key had been Cleaned I hand buffed the key so that I could more easily see defects and damage in the surface.
Here you can see the bur left by solder that had broken.
I Mounted one of my jeweler's files in a vice and pulled the touchpiece across its surface to remove the burs and create a smooth, flat surface.
I then mounted the arm in the vice and cleaned up the Joint with additional files.
Here the touchpiece and arm have been rigged together for Soldering. They must be soldered together using 'easy' silver solder which flows at 1200 degrees Fahrenheit.
The resulting solder joint. Not my best, but definitely not the worst I've ever seen.
Here I am using 600 grit emery paper glued to a popsicle stick to sand the excess solder. Once it was sanded smooth I then buffed the joint to produce an almost invisible seam.
