The manufacture of fused plate, though confined in England to Sheffield and Birmingham for many years, spread in the early part of the 19th century to the continent of Europe, but the articles made in France, Russia and Central Europe never bore comparison in quality or craftsmanship with those of the Sheffield makers.
To produce the plated metal sheets, ingots of copper containing a slight alloy,
to
thick by 2-i" wide by 8" long, were cast, and the surfaces planed, then smoothed. A sheet of silver was cut to the size of the face of the ingot, about -k" thick, also smoothed on the surfaces. The two prepared sur faces were cleaned of all impurities, placed together and firmly pressed. A copper plate dressed with solution of chalk was placed upon the silver and all three firmly secured together, and bound with iron wire.
The ingot was now placed in a furnace especially prepared, and most carefully watched until the silver melted slightly when it firmly adhered to the copper surface. After being withdrawn from the oven and allowed to cool, the copper plate and iron wires were removed from the ingot which after being well cleaned and trimmed was ready for the rolling mills.
At first plated on one side only, a new process was discovered about the year 1765 which en abled the makers to produce sheets with a coating of silver on both sides of the metal. The in genious craftsmen were now not far off realizing their ambition, viz., to produce articles that were indistinguishable f r o m those made in London of standard sil ver.
About t h e year 1768, plated wire was in troduced. A strip of fine silver "N-71I " thick was bent to fit a round copper rod 5" long by 1" diam eter. The two metals were then united by fusion and afterwards drawn continuously through a "whortle" until they assumed the form of a wire. The repeated drawings brought the two silver edges together almost as one piece. This early method was im proved upon and superseded some years later, though the original principle was adhered to in its general details.
The next feature that marked a great advance in manufacture was the addition of silver edges, invented by George Cadman in 1788. Previous to this the raw copper edges had been hidden with solder. The method consisted of drawing a hollow silver wire through a hole which corresponded in size exactly with the edges of the article it was intended to cover : at the same time this process shaped up the silver thread to a groove, thereby enabling the operation of soldering on these silver edges to be carried out more easily.
The method of rubbing in silver shields by applied heat was evolved about the year 181o. Previous to this in order to carry out the engraving of crests, etc., it had been necessary to solder in extra heavily plated sections of metal.
This invention has been attributed to a man of the name of Wilks, who also improved the method of production of plated wire. Having hammered the surface on to which the shield was to be fixed, a piece of pure silver was cut suitable to the size of article to which it was to be made to adhere and heated lightly in a flame, it was flattened all over and chamfered on the edges, as thinly as possible. After being cleaned of impurities the shield was secured to the centre of the plate and heated till it adhered to the metal, then quickly rubbed with a burnish until it was definitely sealed to the under surface. The blank was subsequently hammered until both silver shield and fused plated sheet were brought to one level.
With all these discoveries and inventions allied to their skill in technique and design, it is not surprising that early in the 19th century the Sheffield platers then at the height of their prosperity led the fashion in production of domestic silver as well as Shef field Plate. By the aid of steel dies in which the delicate tracery of their conceptions could be stamped, they continued to produce on an elaborate scale new designs with which the London silver smiths found it difficult to compete.
Having for close on a century held the field for pre-eminence in design and workmanship, Sheffield Plate was gradually superseded by articles plated by the process of electro disposition; though even as late as the 1851 Exhibition the reports of the jurors were unfavourable to this new invention. "They desired to guard against being considered as expressing an opinion on the merit of the application of the electro process of silverplating to objects of domestic use." By the year 186o the firms in Sheffield which had declined to adapt themselves to this innovation were gradually dying out. Though the two processes had merged into each other gradually by the year 1865, the older method of plating by fusion for articles of domestic use had ceased to exist. The production of fused plated silver is still carried on for the making of buttons, it having been found that the rolling and hammering of the sheets is conducive of greater lasting properties for articles so continu ously subjected to hard wear.