Now making some silverstaples , any experiments about sheet thickness with sterling-s., or just same as when working with brass and copper staples?
No reason not to stay with the usual measurements/thickness etc., I tend to think that wall thickness of staples is quite a critical thing for stability in reeds (i.e. thin walls, you either crush the reed when you tie on/apply the bridle, or you have to compensate by making the staple internal bigger, and that will make for a closed up reed and many other probs., like croaking back d, or crap 8ve e etc., though I do like the tone and ease of playability of thick walled staples, but it’s hell to get the reed in tune and stable).
Alan
This may be a pretty ignorant question, but why would you want to bury expensive sterling silver in a staple? My understanding of the use of sterling silver is for looks only. I would have thought that copper or brass for staples would suffice. For thickness I use .020"or .021" - whatever is available.
djm
Silver is an inherently soft metal anyway right? I assume it has some acoustic properties a bit different from the other metals and that it may, in some way, affect the final tone of the reed in the chanter, albeit probably a small way. I’ve had a few reeds made for me that came back with silver bridles and while you don’t see it often, they sure did sparkle all pretty when the windcap came off! 
I tend to lump the staple-material issue with things like, err, the superiority of platinum flutes 
From a materials point of view, silver and copper not so different. Silver is pretty though
I would be very very surprised to find an acoustic difference that could be detected over the “noise” of variations between individual staples and reeds. Probably the smoking ban is having a bigger impact on things, since on one hand there’s less gunk depositing on the inside of reeds and pipes, and on the other, the tar doesn’t help seal the leaks anymore
If you make them for selling purposes, you can charge a higher rate than brass or copper. 
You might want to scrounge around for an old rolling mill from a jeweler. That way you can experiment with thinning metal evenly for your purposes. Make sure you anneal it though as silver will work harden and crack, not as bad as brass, but it will crack. Do you braze/solder the silver once it’s formed? Silver is around $6.50 an ounce, but they charge more for metal plate at jewelers supply shops.
Marc
Just try to find if somebody have thougth how different specific metal gravities could effect to sound and tonecharacterics.(vs flutes,whistles.brassinstruments,different guitarstrings etc.)
(After soldering metals usually softens, hammering makes it hard again and even harder )
By the time the reed has two pieces of cane, and a load of thread, wax, whatever wrapped around it, it doesn’t make much of a difference worth worrying about, I have preference for brass because I work it better than copper,..
Alan