I would like to clear up the doubts expressed by Bear concerning our Silverfuse process. I am Lou Tumolo president of L A T International.
Concern:
"if copper happens to be lower than silver, that would make this claim quite questionable in some regard"
This concern implies that if copper has a lower boiling point than silver, the copper would melt when pulled through the bath of melted silver. This does not occur because silver has a boiling point of 1762 degrees F and copper has a boiling point of 1981 F. We actually maintain the temperature of the silver close to that of the copper. This improves the wetting effect and and helps to control an even thickness of the siver coating achieved through surface tension.
Concerning drawing of silver plated copper, it is true that silver plated copper is plated before being drawn down to its final size. However, in the case of the silverfuse process, the bonding of the silver to copper is achieved by forcing it through a compacting die after being coated, not by simply puling it through a drawing die as is the commercial process of drawing wire to achieve it final size. Forcing through a compacting die, that applies tremendous pressure, is done not only by pulling it through the compacting die, but also by pushing through at the same time. Pulling alone, as is done in commercial drawing of wire would cause the wire to break. The wire comes through at the desired size which is a nominal size and is later drawn to the various sizes required for the manufacturing of all of our cables. The point is that there is no plating anywhere in the Silverfuse process.
