G’day; Several folk have asked me if I would repeat a previous
request on how to clean certain jewellery items. One of these
requests appeared with ‘Calgon’ as part of the subject line…
Now I wrote it all out but am still learning to drive this new
computer, so different from my horribly crashed Amiga and I fear
that I messed things up (yet again!) so here we go and sorry if
what I wrote earlier really did get out!
Firstly, ''twern’t me who mentioned the Calgon 'twas another wot
put that in! So. before you do anything thoroughly degrease and
wash the job in hot detergent with a dash of ammonia, using a
toothbrush, then rinse well. Actually what I suggested was then to
dissolve a small handful of common washing soda, sodium carbonate
(not BI-carbonate, though it might work) in about a pint or so
of hot water (quantities quite unimportant) then add a piece of
aluminium kitchen foil together with your tarnished, but clean
jewellery. The foil will fizz like mad, giving off hydrogen gas
in a particularly active form (called nascent hydrogen, or plain H
as well as H2) which will reduce the oxides and sulphides on
jewellery metals but will not touch the metal itself. You could
even use an aluminium saucepan instead of the foil, but of course
the metal of the saucepan will suffer a bit as the alkaline
solution reacts with it and erodes it.
I haven’t had anything to do with Calgon, which I believe is
really a water softener but which would probably contain sodium
carbonate. Another very good cleaner is Goddards silver dip
available from most supermarkets - it is an excellent stuff and
works very well indeed - see instructions on the bottle.
There was another person who’s mail I just lost through bumbling
incompetence - who wanted to know if this process would affect the
’patina’ produced by 'liver of sulphur (I hate archae-isms in
regard to chemicals; I prefer to call it potassium polysulphide,
though you can leave poly out of it if you like - she won’t mind.
You could even use the gardener’s friend, Lime-sulphur, calcium
polysulphide used for dealing with fungus on precious plants; it’s
just as effective and far cheaper)
So. yes, the treatment given above will doubtless remove the
’antiquing’ sulphides on silver, very low carat gold, copper, brass
and bronzes, which means that the sulphiding job would have to be
redone and the work then buffed by hand, finally given a gentle
brush with a brass brush - one of those sold for cleaning suede
works well, or you could do a good job with the tiny rotary brush
on a ‘flex- drive’. Cheers now,
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/ /___| \ @John_Burgess2
(______ )
At sunny Nelson NZ where days are lovely and nights are longer and cold