Hi all! I have a little debate going on with hubby regarding Silver
Dip vs Polishing Sterling jewelry. I love the dip while he says it
damages the finish and does not produce quality results. With over 300
pairs of 925 gem earrings and pounds, and pounds of sterling to
polish for resale, I want to have production (with good results) and
he wants only quality. As I had mentioned before, We are a very small
operation (him & I) and sometimes get overwhelmed with things that
need finishing, etc. Thank you in advance for your help!
If it’s primarily a tarnish issue, you might look into one of the
Speed-Brite cleaners offered by most suppliers. I have the one that
hooks on my ultrasonic, but they make standalone units, as well. Good
for silver tarnish (and virtually any stones), except in maybe the
most severe cases. I recently resurrected a bunch of sterling dangle
earrings I made a few years ago, and only a couple pairs required
individual attention after Speed-Brite sessions.
I recently dipped a bunch of loose round sterling beads, using
Goddard’s, and was unable to discern a distinct improvement
afterwards. I’ve had it stored in a area without climate control for a
while… maybe it’s got a shelf life?
Hi. When if first opened my store, I found that all of my antique
oak display cases caused the silver to tarnish very quickly. We
started using the Dip tarnish remover. It worked great. BUT I found
that I now had to clean the silver every week or so vs a much longer
cycle than when hand cleaning. Also, the slow movers started looking
a little shabby after a while. We went back to using the silver
polishing cloths.
Last year, I started doing shows again and when I pulled out my
silver chains, they looked really bad. In desperation, I picked up a
jar of the dip and cleaned them but this time, I took small batches
at at time and after the dip, I toughly steam cleaned them. They
have stayed bright for some nine months now. I belive the key to the
dip is to completely remove any trace of it after it has finished it
job. I think you could do the cleaning without a steam cleaner but it
would not be as effective.
Hi All, 3 M company makes a black paper that is inserted in the box
or bag that silver jewelry is stored in. This paper stops the the
silver from tarnishing for a very long time.It may be possible to put
a strip of this paper inside a showcase to do the same thing.
In my experience, the dip is a quick fix for removing tarnish in
those places where the tarnish is difficult to remove with paste or
cream type silver cleaners. BUT, the chemical dip leaves the metal
unprotected. Silver cream or paste should be applied after dipping
in order to get that protective (?)
layer. This would also apply for silver on display that has been buffed.
I found that silver dip is about the only thing that works for
textured pieces. I did a line textured with the German texturing
wheels and dip was the answer; that is, the answer for all but pieces
that were almost black with oxide. I use the Speedbrite Ionic cleaner
now for reviving pieces, but found that with wheel textures, I have
to be extremely careful to remove the clip immediately when bubbles
form. If not, black deposits deep into the
texture and that is a pain. Louise
What brand name of silver dip do you all recommend? I have been
working on a link bracelet, and plan to do more, but have found that
they are pure hell to clean up and polish, and tumbling these pieces
with the stones unset (which I have to do since some of the stones I
use, such as turquoise and yowah opal are soft) seems to deform and
work-harden the bezels, making the stonesetting more difficult. Silver
dip could be a good short-cut for me.
LYDIA Mistress Jewelry wrote: Hi all! I have a little debate going
on with hubby regarding Silver Dip vs Polishing Sterling jewelry.
G’day; I have a small experience of using Silver Dip. Think of what
it does; it simply removes tarnish by converting it to chemicals which
dissolve in water and disappear in air. And it also converts simple
surface compounds of silver and of copper into silver and copper
metals (the sulphides are removed by having been converted to hydrogen
sulphide. Therefore, it does remove some of the original surface -
but a blind man would be glad to see it, as the saying goes. In fact
special instruments are needed to determine the thickness of what has
gone, and you need a 4 decimal laboratory balance to weigh it. So yes,
the surface is different, but so long as the amount of tarnish is
minimal, the tiny amount of deterioration won’t be visible. But
there’s always two hands; if the tarnish is not too bad, then the best
trick is to put a bit of extra polish on the jewellery afterwards with
a silver cloth or if pretty bad or in the case of chain, then in a
vibro polisher after the dip and give it a buzz for about half an hour
What brand name of silver dip do you all recommend? I have been
working on a link bracelet, and plan to do more, but have found that
they are pure hell to clean up and polish,<<
The one that’s worked the best for me is 'Goddard’s Silver Dip". A
little (usually less than 5 minutes) time in the dip followed by a
rinse under running water does the job.
I got a 10 oz. (little over a pint) jar from Indian Jewelers Supply
(ijsinc.com).
What brand name of silver dip do you all recommend?
G’'day; an excellent brand is Goddard’s; available in most
supermarkets. Follow the instructions on the container. Or:- Put a bit
of aluminium foil into the bottom of a basin, Dissolve a small handful
of washing soda in warm water, and pour it into the basin, then put
your tarnished metal in the basin. The fizzing is due to the
evolution of hydrogen from the reaction between the aluminium and the
soda. The freshly formed monatomic hydrogen is hungry for oxides and
sulphides, and converts them into water and the metal. Wash well,
and polish; the warm alkaline soda shouldn’t harm the soft stones, but
as Goddard’s contains acid, many stones like turquoise and pearls,
Blue John, etc are best kept away from it. –
Any idea of how you can use these dips or tarnishing solutions with
items that you can’t wash afterwards due to other (non-metal) or
painted items on the pc?
Hi Lee, I make my own silver dip for conservation purposes. The
recipie is 5-10% sulphuric acid, 1% Thiourea (inhibitor that stops the
acid from attacking freshly cleaned metal), roughly 1% detergent and
the rest is water. The detergent is there so that you can scrub the
jewellery piece with an old toothbrush. Don’t forget to wash your
piece in water afterwards. For conservation work, I tend to pour out
a small amount for each piece and dispose of it afterwards to avoid
contamination between metals.
Any idea of how you can use these dips or tarnishing solutions with
items that you can’t wash afterwards due to other (non-metal) or
painted items on the pc?