Any information on firestain (really any at all)

I would like to know about the most annoying thing about working with silver. We all know it. We all hate it. Firestain. Principally I would like to know how to best prevent. Is it with flux or with an alloy and what that flux or alloy would that be. I also have a few questions about it in general which I will list here:

  • does it go away when you reuse scrap? i.e you have some firestained sheet, melt it and roll some new sheet would that sheet have all the firestain from the old sheet plus all the new firestain from being Annealed

  • How can I remove it without destroying detail?

Additionally, I have decided to alloy sterling using yellow/cartridge brass (70Cu30Zn) and from what I can tell it seems only a smidgen softer than standard sterling and very ductile. It also seems to firescale less but isn’t immune to it, does that sound right?

I will eventually switch to a palladium sterling such as continuum but right now I’d like one that is the same (or similar at least) in price to sterling. No more than a dollar a gram :slight_smile:

Anyway thanks for any help

ArgentumMoon