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• Before & After •
1740 London Sterling Punch Bowl

This 13", 114 troy oz. punch bowl was placed in a duffel bag and put in the cargo compartment on an airplane. This was the result from man-handling.

The crack in the bowl body happened on a previously brazed area. Notice the loss of chased detail in the center of the bend.

Major deformations in the base.

The Repair Process... The bowl cracks were welded with sterling.

The entire piece was annealed to to make it easier to remove the dents.

Pulling out the base produced numerous breaks along the chased line.

Since the sterling was so thick and difficult to manuver, I decided to remove the base from the stem to make it easier to repair.

The bowl and base separated.

Hammering the base back into shape and closing the splits with a wooden hammer.

Additional dents were removed with a nylon hammer and sandbag to avoid altering the chasing.

Another major split in the base that required welding and rechasing prior to reattaching to the stem.

Applying the patina which will show off the flat chasing.

The exterior fully patinated.

Hand polishing the exterior to bring back the original luster.

Below is the finished piece with some of the gilding still intact. The bowl did not result in a perfect restoration because the sterling had stresses that constantly resulted in cracks from dent removal which were then welded with sterling for a perfect color match. The customer was notified throughout the process of these unforeseen issues and what to expect to see upon completion. I consider this a repair as opposed to a restoration because the I could not bring back the original appearance prior to the damage.

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