SILVER IN INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, 2 September 1933, Page 8 (Supplement)

SILVER IN INDUSTRY.

HIGH VALUE AS SOLDER. METAL OF MANY USES. Teeth are nioro or less off the gold standard. Now industry is beginning to wonder what will happen if silver is to bo remonctiscd. Not that remonetieation means ar.y departure from established industrial practices, but that there may be a difference ill tho cost of some processes. The man who flies in an airplane, the companies that find it necessary to splice ocean cables or high-tension conductors, the manufacturers of railway signals, fireproof doors, giant motors, transformers and some electrical household devices—all are affected by tho rise and fall of silver. For silver is the perfect solder. It melts between 1175 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is fairly low for a metal and yet not so low that it will become soft at a heat that any of us can produce with ordinary apparatus. What commends it to the trades is its fluidity in tho molten state, its great strength, its ductility when cold and its resistance to corrosion. As soon as it is melted, silver flows like water into the smallest crack. When the weld freezes it resists tho breaking strain of terrific vibration. That is why tho Government insists on tho use of silver in joining the feedpipes and other parts of airplanes, why electrical engineers demand silver for their motors and other apparatus, why tho designers of battleships want silver to Bolder equipment that is shaken by heavy gun-fire. If most electrical conductors are made of copper it is because of its low cost. But silver is a better conductor, which is the reason why it is specified wherever electrical losses must be avoided.