Cleaning silver?

[Mom]

Only if you have some type of water cannon available for the assailing of the tubby ginger one!

Not only water cannon my friend, but a couple of kids that will do anything for a dollar The gun I am thinking of dispatches a jet of water that abouts knocks you off your feet at close range

[yungatart]

I remember polishing my mum's silver with Silvo and newspaper.
I don't remember how I got the black stuff off my hands afterwards though!

[Forest]

Be careful about polishing engraved silver.

Silver is very soft, so you'll end up smoothing out the engraved pattern if you polish it vigorously. After a few years of regular polishing you will loose the pattern entirely.

[rustyrobot]

Mom, this web page... http://www.darylscience.com/Demos/Silver.html has great info on cleaning silver. I followed the advice to clean some rings and was amazed at how easy it was and how fantastic they looked.

Using aluminium foil and baking soda, you can clean the silver effortlessly and save the elbow grease for your bike.

"When silver tarnishes, it combines with sulfur and forms silver sulfide. Silver sulfide is black. When a thin coating of silver sulfide forms on the surface of silver, it darkens the silver. The silver can be returned to its former luster by removing the silver sulfide coating from the surface. There are two ways to remove the coating of silver sulfide. One way is to remove the silver sulfide from the surface. The other is to reverse the chemical reaction and turn silver sulfide back into silver."

[Mom]

Mom, this web page... http://www.darylscience.com/Demos/Silver.html has great info on cleaning silver. I followed the advice to clean some rings and was amazed at how easy it was and how fantastic they looked.

Using aluminium foil and baking soda, you can clean the silver effortlessly and save the elbow grease for your bike.

"When silver tarnishes, it combines with sulfur and forms silver sulfide. Silver sulfide is black. When a thin coating of silver sulfide forms on the surface of silver, it darkens the silver. The silver can be returned to its former luster by removing the silver sulfide coating from the surface. There are two ways to remove the coating of silver sulfide. One way is to remove the silver sulfide from the surface. The other is to reverse the chemical reaction and turn silver sulfide back into silver."

Thank you so much. I knew there was a way to do it without the elbow grease. I will do some reading and get cleaning.

Have to wait till after the weekend, apparently I have itchy feet and am heading out on my bike for an unplanned weekend away. First place I rang looking for a room for the night, the woman said to me...

"You do know it is Labour Weekend eh?" Well of course we do...

[Okey Dokey]

Hi Mom, sorry a bit late replying. I used Silvo on some silver that was horrendously black and tarnished about a year ago. It didn't take all that much effort, and since then I have only had to use a soft cloth with no polish to keep it looking brand new. So, no short cut, but even if you have to resort to silver polish, it may be just a one off. Good luck, and enjoy your labour weekend