What is Nickel Silver or German Silver
Nickel Silver has many names such as German Silver, German Nickel Silver, New Silver, Paktong, Alpacca, Alpaca.
German silver was developed in 1823 from a German competition. The goal was to develop an alloy that had the most visual similarity to silver.
No matter what you want to call Nickel Silver / German Silver it is a metal alloy which contains copper, nickel and sometimes zinc.
As you can see there’s no silver in that mixture.
Some formulas may contain antimony, tin, lead or cadnium. A normal Alloy # 752 is 65% copper, 18% nickel and 17% zinc. If it contains a higher
portion of zinc it may be termed stainless. Nickel 55-18 is 55% copper, 18% zinc & 27% other.
Searches on the web will come up with many of various mixtures of industry standard Nickels.
For example, Nickel 55-18 is also known as Nickel Alloy 770. This has the following information on it.
| CHEMICAL COMPOSITION: NICKEL SILVER 55 – 18 |
| 55% CU / 27% ZN / 18% NI |
| ASME SPEC NO.: |
| SAE ALLOY NO.: CA770 |
| MILITARY SPEC.: |
| ASTM ALLOY NO.:B122 |
| FEDERAL SPECS: QCC 585 |
| DENSITY(lbs. per cu. in at 68 F (Annealed) (x 27.68 = gms/cu cm at 20 C):.314 |
| MOD. OF ELAST.(x 10****** PSI, tension): 18 |
| ELECT. COND.(% IACS at 68 F (20 C) as annealed): 5.5 |
| THERM. COND. |
| (BTU per sq.ft.per ft.per hr.per F at 68 F,(20 C): 17 |
| COEFF.OF TH.EXPN.(Inches/inch/ F x 10(-******) from 68 F to 572 F (20 C to 300 C): 9.3 |
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| (x 1000 PSI (MPA = KSI x 6.8948) |
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| annealed: 61 – 76 | 23 – 41 | ||||
| 1/2 hard: 78 – 95 | 64 – 93 | ||||
| full hard: 92 – 107 | 90 – 106 | ||||
| spring: 108 – 120 | 107 – 118 | ||||
Variation of nickel silver has various attributes which are good for key
material. And Nickel silver in general is a good metal for making
musical instrument keys out of.