Apparatus for Coating and Cold Welding in Vacuum

The figure illustrates selected aspects of a manually actuated apparatus for use in coating two small objects with suitable metals, then forcing the two objects together at the coated flat surfaces with uniform pressure to cold-weld them to each other. The design of this apparatus provides for all steps of the coating and cold-welding processes, including intermediate steps of manipulation between these processes, to be performed in a vacuum, with no need to break vacuum between the processes as in older methods of coating and cold welding. By maintaining vacuum through all processing steps, one prevents the formation of surface oxides, which interfere with cold welding. Maintaining vacuum also prevents the formation of pockets of trapped gas, which render the bond nonuniform.