Brazing Slots Or Holes

[sean michael cronin]

Time to open that old can of worms, the brazing slot. Many of us have bi metal badges constructed by this method, and many repro men are knocking out their latest fakes with these slots or holes. In the cut and thrust of business, tendering for contracts to supply the Army's badges, I find it hard to believe that most manufacturers went to all the trouble of punching out brazing slots in the rear of the badges to allow the braze and the flame to reach the attached metal on the face of the badge, when other manufacturers simply clamped the two things together and applied heat. Or is it the case that modern technology has produced brazes that do not require as much heat ?

[Keith Blakeman]

Originally Posted by sean michael cronin

Time to open that old can of worms, the brazing slot. Many of us have bi metal badges constructed by this method, and many repro men are knocking out their latest fakes with these slots or holes. In the cut and thrust of business, tendering for contracts to supply the Army's badges, I find it hard to believe that most manufacturers went to all the trouble of punching out brazing slots in the rear of the badges to allow the braze and the flame to reach the attached metal on the face of the badge, when other manufacturers simply clamped the two things together and applied heat. Or is it the case that modern technology has produced brazes that do not require as much heat ?

I'm not sure you can get away with doing that to braze as I believe that you have to heat the metal and flux to red hot before applying the brazing rod to the metal. With plumbers solder you definently can by tinning (applying a solder coat) to either or both the facing surfaces, re-fluxing, clamping together and then just reheating the rear of the badge.

I can't say I've seen may fakes with sweatholes. Those that spring to mind have all been common ones Essex, Dorsetshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Kings, 3rd Carbs & the Loyal Suffolk Hussars! I may be mistaken and this practice is more widespread than I thought in which case I've probably got a lot more fakes in my collection than I thought.

[Luke H]

I don't believe the presence of braze holes can gaurentee a badge as genine any more, (after all its pretty easy to punch a couple of holes in the base stamping of a badge) I still think overall condition: quality of stamping; age; wear; metal quality all need to be taken into consideration in a holistic fashion.

If someone wanted to make the perfect fake these days I'm sure they could if there was enough money for them at the end of their deceitful rainbow.

I believe the gold standard would be an assembly of collections assembeled pre 1970s i.e pre restrikes with examples from several different dies for each regimental badge, this would allow a catalogue of dimensions, details plus construction methods which would allow us to weed out most current restrikes. The only trouble is such a works for the collecter would undoubtly be used by the fakers as their bench mark for copying dies.

Personally I think restrikes should actually be ilegal especially any badge with a crown or royal title which should fall under crown copyright and be ilegal to reproduce without permission of the monach... but its too late now by half!

Sorry to sound pessamestic but as restriking dies/methods improve and current decieving strikes gather age how will one tell the difference in future years?

After all that said I still love the hobby and although have packed it in in the past still can't stay away for long as it is a fantastic muse.

Best of luck in our minefield hobby

Luke

[Bantam]

Sometime ago I purchased The Small Edwardian Version of The South Wales Borderers Badge only to discover when I was informed by a very knowledgeable friend and collector that restrikes existed.
If that was not bad enough he also informed me that another collector friend of his had passed on buying the badge because it did not have brazing holes,and that in his experience a test of the badge was to place it in boiling water and if it was genuine then the badge would remain in one piece had no choice but to take the test and thankfully I still had only one badge and not two.
Has anyone heard of any similar practices/tests?
Regards
Bantam

[Keith Blakeman]

Originally Posted by Bantam

Sometime ago I purchased The Small Edwardian Version of The South Wales Borderers Badge only to discover when I was informed by a very knowledgeable friend and collector that restrikes existed.
If that was not bad enough he also informed me that another collector friend of his had passed on buying the badge because it did not have brazing holes,and that in his experience a test of the badge was to place it in boiling water and if it was genuine then the badge would remain in one piece had no choice but to take the test and thankfully I still had only one badge and not two.
Has anyone heard of any similar practices/tests?
Regards
Bantam

Any chance of posting that badge please as it's one of my more wanted and I've never seen one?

Boiling water would seperate parts if joined with low melt solder, the sort used on whitemetal model kits but nothing like plumbers or silver solder which melt at a high temperature. I once had a copy 25th Dragoons in Nitmromors for 24 hours removing some sort of brown coating on it and it came apart, presumably it must have been glued together!

[Bantam]

Kieth,
I will post a photo over the weekend.I can't help laughing after all the serious debates of late to discover us badge collectors appear to be amateur alchemists as well.
Regrads
Bantam

[dragonz18]

Originally Posted by sean michael cronin

Time to open that old can of worms, the brazing slot. Many of us have bi metal badges constructed by this method, and many repro men are knocking out their latest fakes with these slots or holes. In the cut and thrust of business, tendering for contracts to supply the Army's badges, I find it hard to believe that most manufacturers went to all the trouble of punching out brazing slots in the rear of the badges to allow the braze and the flame to reach the attached metal on the face of the badge, when other manufacturers simply clamped the two things together and applied heat. Or is it the case that modern technology has produced brazes that do not require as much heat ?

I think that the term 'brazing holes' is a little misleading here, suggesting that the adheasion of the 2 pieces is made from the back of the badge.A truer term is 'sweat holes' that are there to allow any excess of the fixing solder & gases produced by the process to escape easily,rather than from the sides, that would be possibly messy & could result in movement between the 2 surfaces.
This is as it has been explained to me by those in the badge production industry,anyway.
Indeed ,they were clamped in position first, a measured amount of the solder having been attached to the back of the top piece first,then heated to affect the join, ie: heat + pressure = 'sweating'. Later technical advances in the types of solders used & processes,etc. has negated the need to work in this way. Am also informed that in the early days,manufacturers often made their own solders & could vary a good deal, in quality & possibly explaining why some carried on this process for longer.?
Hope this helps ?
Cheers !
Steve