|
|
Silver cleaning is part of my job.Feb 22 '05 Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Auto Parts and Accessories
The Bottom Line Complex work but the joy to ones silver (over years) is guaranteed.
First I had written and published this text in German language for CIAO.DE. Later I rewrote the text into the English language to improve the my language abilities and published it on CIAO.UK That was in the year 2002. I restore antiquity clocks and take over almost all work, which is occupied with antiques. So belongs also the maintaining of silver to my job and many customers bring me their stuff. Naturally I am well paid for it, but I would like the reader now tell, how he/she can do this at home. If one cleans silver, one should always put or place it on a soft cloth. Silver is a very soft metal and if you place it directly in such a way on the desk or the buffet, it can come to damages during the cleaning. Silver is a noble metal, which becomes by the maintenance of many years only more beautiful and more attractive. It colors however very fast; this process puts a bluish to brown glows from silber sulfid on the surface. Into small steps I will somewhat tell you about washing, cleaning and polishing. We begin with the beginning: you wash the silver. After each use you should wash the pieces thoroughly around to remove leftovers of desert and beverage remainders. Above all sauces of salads or eggs make extreme marks on the silver, which are very hart to remove. Take hot water and quite normal detergent and wash all the pieces gently. Rinse off after washing very well with clear and hot water. Also this water should be correctly hot, in order to avoid spotting. Dry the piece well and go with a soft cloth around all corners and edges. We concerned at step two: We polish the silver now. I am sometimes laughed at, because I carry soft gloves from a fine material when polishing silver; however I can only recommend this to also do so, if you want to polish the pieces of yourselves in the future. This gloves protect the silver and your skin. When you polish you can quite easily make a scratch in the silver with the fingernails. Each person has an acid film on his skin and if you touch with "naked" fingers the silver to polish, on the place concerned a blue mark, which you must polish again. As the third argument one can still mention the clean-remained own fingers; Is a dirty work polishes silver. Well, you bought the gloves now, but which polishing stuff should buy? For polishing there are the most diverse things; impregnated cloths, silver creams, foam pastes and also liquid polishing pastes. To recommend I know there only a polishing product, which has also a long-term effect. This long-term effect is like a protective layer on the silver and prevented like that, which lets air the pieces start again, additionally is preserved the beautiful gloss longer. Now we have the gloves and a polishing product. What do you do now? First you should take a soft cloth. From the experience I can refer only to old towels or face-cloths. Old bettsheets are also very useful and bring the desired results. Put a little of the polishing product on the piece of silver and polish it with gentle and circling movements the desired portion. Do not exert your pressure; your can, with a little pitch, destroy the piece. After you processed everything at the piece with the product, you take a clean cloth and polish the whole item again and remove the polish. Go into all corners and edges, because if remainders remain here from the polishing product, the piece starts colorring tomorrow already again. Take a soft brush (for babies hairs); the soft hair of this brush is very suitable for the finishing of the work. Go with the brush still carefully over the piece and remove the all-last remainders of the polishing agent from grooves, ornaments and seams. Finally you are finished! Then again back after step one: washing. Wash the piece as were above already described again. Hot water is a real must. Take now also again the baby brush in the hand. After the wash dry the item carefully. Use after the drying a chamoisleather (= a leather cloth of the finest sort) on high-end polish. If you should not possess chamoisleather, you can take also a normal leather cloth. However this should be used then also ONLY for the endpolish of the silver. The more softly the leather the more beautifully the gloss. If you should have plated silver, then you can treat this in the same way as Sterling silver. You should consider however, that you clear away each time a microscopically thin layer of the silver; therefore you should not so often polish plated silver. The corners and edges are fast through-polished and therefore you should be there quite careful with polishing; if the silver is away there, the whole piece starts colorring in hours and becomes never again beautiful. In order to achieve this, they would have to polish however each day their silver. Now well, you now washed and polished and again washed; what now? Something which I gladly do not recommend, but must nevertheless mention, are the cleaning dry-cleanings to the silver maintenance. It occurs nothing with the silver, but the risk on dents and scratches increases with this procedure substantially. Take a plastic dish and cover the bottom of it with aluminum foil. Place or put your piece of silver on the foil. Pull your plastic gloves (NO rubber gloves, because they leave black marks on the silver) on and take a half cup of soda. Resolve this then into almost cooking water; about 1 litre. Pour this solution now VERY CAREFULLY over the silver and avoid splashing. The solution will now begin to bubble. This will bubble by the reaction between start layer and aluminum foil called. The dirt layer on the silver resolves itself and penetrates into the aluminum foil. Turn the piece of silver for approximately 2-3 minutes in the solution around, thus all corners to be achieved and taken it then out from the solution. Even if it should look still dirty; the piece is realy clean. Now the old procedure begins again from the start: wash, polish and again wash. silver plated pieces should not be clean-put, but be submerged at the most briefly. Evt. Even several times. Now we washed and polished and again washed and now you should put again your soft gloves. Every touch with the naked fingers makes all your work useless now. Buy in the bookshop tissue paper or go to the jeweler and buying it there. That is actually also only tissue paper, but evenly more expensively, because you buy it with the jeweler. Wind the unused pieces of silver individually into this paper and pay attention to it, nothing should stay uncovered from the paper. Take 4-5 layers paper. Take a plastic bag and pack up the pieces in it. Close the bags as hermetically as possible and tape them. If you should want to preserve the pieces over longer time, then you should buy silicic acid in the drugstore. This silicic acid, about 1 spoon per piece of bag/silver, wind it also in tissue paper an put it in the bag with the silver. Silicic acid protects drying against humidity and holds the silver. Distribute the packages silicic acid in the bags and lock them hermetically as possible away. ATTENTION: NEVER treat silver coins in this way; they become absolutely worthless for the resale. ONLY rub with a soft cloth. Thank you for reading. Copyright Ilonka Liska Epinions & CIAO. Comments would be nice too... :o)  |
| Write the first comment on this review! |
