The next stage in the process was the process of passing these blocks under steel rollers in the rolling mills. And during this operation it underwent several further stages of heating or annealing. Here again the workman has to ascertain to a nicety the exact moment to discontinue the firing, otherwise all would be ruined and the silver be burnt off the face of the copper. In glass blowing similar technical difficulties render the art one of great rapidity and quick judgment. At the last stage, by an act of misjudgment, all the previous work might be wasted and the piece turn out a wreck. The fire is a capricious agent. In pottery it is the same. Many a vase after being elaborately painted by the artist and fired in the ovens, owing to some accident, comes out a distorted and misshapen mass.
The result of this Sheffield plating was to produce a sheet which could be manipulated in the same manner as though it were solid silver. The interiors of vessels, it is true, showed the copper, but these were tinned till at a later date silver was placed on both sides of the copper and fused at the same operation in the furnace. In regard to the ornament a good deal found on old Sheffield plated ware was made by the use of dies, such as feet, handles, knobs, and were cast in two halves and soldered together prior to being affixed in their positions on the articles. In other forms of decoration similar to that found on the silver plate of the day the same technique was employed in the _repoussé_ work in producing a raised design on the exterior, that is, by means of hammering against a sand-bag, using a tool on the inside of the vessel. Chasing and engraving is done on the outside while the vessel is filled with sand or with some other composition.
This technique is not confined to Sheffield plated articles; it is the technique of the silversmith, where _repoussé_ work receives its striking force by a tiny hammer from within the vessel; chasing with sunk lines, and elaboration and finishing the _repoussé_ design, is done from the exterior.
In regard to designs, the productions duplicate some of the finest plate. At its best Sheffield plate realized its artistic responsibilities. It did not disseminate shoddy imitations of English plate. Its copies had the saving grace of being executed by men who understood the value of the originals. They worked faithfully in a more economic medium, but they did not debase the original design, and they were too clever to add meretricious touches of their own and mar work which they must have loved or they could not have copied it so truly.