Household Repairs Note, If the pewter to be mended is a prized piece, let a professional fix it.

Small holes. Clean the metal inside the pewter object with steel wool, then cover hole with plastic steel.

Joints between pewter surfaces cracked. Use plastic steel as above if the repair cannot be seen. Otherwise, remove tarnish from the surfaces and clean metal carefully with fine emery cloth. With a warm soldering iron melt shavings of tallow on the surface (this serves as a flux). Use a special tin-lead-bismuth solder. Hold the soldering iron against the pewter; hold the solder against both the iron and the pewter, and melt solder into the joint. Do not hold soldering iron long in one spot because pewter has a low melting point.

Dents. First try to press it out with your fingers. If this doesn't work, hold a block of wood over concave side of dent and tap the reverse side sharply but not too heavily with another block of wood.

Pewter separated from other materials, such as felt. See household decorative accessories under metal.

Tarnished. Clean with silver polish.



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November 21, 2008