Kilt Pin Repair

[John Henderson]

I came home from work one evening last week to find my kilt pin, and its actual pin, separately lying on the bathroom counter. When I left that morning, it was firmly attached to my kilt in the closet. My wife claims that she "merely brushed it" and it fell apart.

This is the typical pewter (?) clan badge pin that you pick up at the highland games or from any number of online vendors. My first question is, how was the pin attached to the back? Soldered? Adhesive?

If I were to find a local person to fix it, who am I looking for? A jeweler? I am afraid that it'd cost more to pay someone to fix it that to replace it with a new one, though, but I hate to be wasteful, and I've had it many years waiting to get a kilt, so am a bit attached to it.

Do you think I can glue it back adequately with cyanoacrylate? The break is very clean.

[Steve Ashton]

The standard clan crest from Gaelic Themes, Art Pewter and Glen Esk are soft soldered.
Anyone with a bit of experience doing electronics can do this. Or even any competent hobbyist jeweler.

I use regular soft solder with a 60%/40% mix and non acid flux. I use a butane micro torch and remove the heat just as the solder starts to flow. If you get the piece too hot it will melt into a pool of formless pewter.

For the X Marks Lapel Pins I used hard silver solder but that requires just a bit higher heat so I would not suggest you try that unless you have done a few before.

[John Henderson]

I've quite a bit of electronics soldering in the somewhat distant past. All I have at home now, though, is a fixed power pencil-type soldering iron. Is that not going to hack it?

[Steve Ashton]

The small, fixed power pencil irons probably won't work as well. They do not usually produce enough heat. You need to get the entire pin up to temp. quickly and then cool back down just a quickly.

You could try it if you want, but it it takes more than just a second or so to get solder to flow you probably don't have enough heat.

[MNlad]

If you want to go the adhesive route, I'd use something like JB Weld epoxy rather than cyanoacrylate (super glue). Just be sure to rough up any smooth surface that is going to be joined so the glue has something to bite into. JB Weld is quite strong and gray in appearance when mixed, so it would almost disappear against the pewter.

[Theyoungkiltman]

I would use something other than jb weld. In my experience it is not very durable on metal (but good on anything else!)

[MNlad]

In my experience it is not very durable on metal

That can be true if the metal is subject to flexing, but that should not be a problem with a kilt pin.

[John Henderson]

I'll let y'all know what I do. My sense of "doing the job right" wants it soldered, but I do not have the micro torch, butane and pewter solder (which I might have to mail order). I ordinarily don't mind adding to my tool collection, if it's something I think I'll use again, but this is not one of those cases, and this stuff adds up to several times the $10 cost that my clan society is selling new pins for.
I'm going to stop by a local jewelry shop today on the way home from work, and see if they can do it for less than a cost of a new pin.