Tarnish-resist treatment

Jewelry Discussion
1

Dear Orchidians,

I have gone thru old threads and correspondence regarding tarnish
protection for copper alloys and find that none of the products
recommended are available locally. So I need to figure out the best
equivalent on the basis of ingredients…

The piece to be protected is copper, brass, nickel silver, silver,
oxidized silver, and gold-filled wire. It has large (4"x3") smooth
surfaces as well as very intricate wire work. Apart from the
oxidized silver, all the metals are in their natural state with a
sheen (not real matte, not shiny). All parts are joined by miniature
screws so it can be disassembled for future care. I prefer a
wax/paste as opposed to a lacquer and am not sure about the bonding
effectiveness of liquid waxes.

The recommended products NOT available are: Renaissance Wax, Krylon
Crystal Clear Acrylic Coating, Butcher’s Wax, Incralac, SC Johnson’s
Paste Wax, Rustoleum, etc.

Products available are:

  • Turtle Wax Metallic Car Wax (blue container)
  • Turtle Wax Original Hard Shell Shine Car Wax (green container)
  • Simoniz Liquid Diamond Polymer Sealant (“active silicones and
    polymer sealants”)
  • “The Treatment” Carnauba Paste Wax Can 8. oz (USA) thetreatment.com
  • Carnauba wax, conditioners, durable silicones
  • Antik Wax—Beeswax and carnauba wax Locally packaged but from
  • Poliboy (Germany) Marketed for furniture (wood)

There are also some Turtle Wax liquids.

I guess one of my main questions is: are the silicones/polymers
important (as this is missing in the German product which otherwise
sounds good)? All products run around $10-$15 for 200ml which is too
expensive to get a few and experiment. I was hoping someone out
there may have experience with them or know what the ingredients of
the recommended products are…

Thanks for any advice!
Janet in Jerusalem

2

Dear Orchidians:

I see from the Archives that my 29 May post did not print the list
of available treatments properly…The six products aRe:

  1. Turtle Wax Metallic Car Wax (blue container)

  2. Turtle Wax Original Hard Shell Shine Car Wax (green container)

  3. Simoniz Liquid Diamond Polymer Sealant (“active silicones and
    polymer sealants”)

  4. “The Treatment” Carnauba Paste Wax Can 8. oz (USA)
    www.thetreatment.com containing carnauba wax, conditioners, durable
    silicones

  5. Antik Wax—Beeswax and carnauba wax—Locally packaged but from
    Poliboy(Germany)—Marketed for furniture (wood)

  6. There are also some Turtle Wax liquids.

Which, if any, are likely to prevent the copper alloys from
tarnishing and—more important—prevent fingerprints? Are the
silicones/polymers important (as this is missing in the German
product which otherwise sounds good)?

Thanks for any advice!
Janet in Jerusalem

3

Hi Janet,

Since nobody else seems to have responded, I’ll give it a shot. If
you want to use a wax, I think that #5–the beeswax and carnauba
sounds good. I’ve always thought that the more carnauba, the better
and harder the wax.

I will say, however, that in my experience, waxes are good for
sealing patinas (in which case it is important that the wax not have
any “cleaners”). For keeping metal bright, I find that lacquers work
best. My current favorite is a furniture lacquer made by Rustoleum
that comes in a green can and says Specialty Lacquer. It definitely
looks lacquered, though, as opposed to wax, which tends not to show.
Nikolas lacquer is good, too, but the Rustoleum lacquer tends to
smooth itself out more nicely, in my experience.

I hope this helps!
Cynthia Eid

4

I have been testing enjine joes stuff. So far my high polished
copper, sitting out for a month has NO tarnish. I used the organic
version. Love this stuff for all kinds of things. Saw and bur lube.
Goimg to try it over an LOS patina then try to remove the patina
next!

5 
I have been testing enjine joes stuff. So far my high polished
copper, sitting out for a month has NO tarnish. I used the organic
version. Love this stuff for all kinds of things. Saw and bur
lube. Goimg to try it over an LOS patina then try to remove the
patina next!

I have also been testing Engen Joe’s stuff…

I have this 20" window fan from the 70’s, an old Toastmaster…

Anyone else remember 3 metal blade fans…on the consumer
market…?

I gave it it’s annual cleaning, and then smeared some of the
standard EJ lube on the rear bearing, and touched it a tad with my
butane torch so it could get in there… In Summers past, about every
3-4 days or so, I had to shoot Tri-Flow into the bearing to get it to
quiet down… It’s been purring like a kitten for 3 weeks…

It’s also doing nicely on the slide of a 22 pistol, and I have a
friend who’s going to try some on his stainless hand cannon next
cleaning…

Last Summer I took a soldering course at UWM here (thank you, Jen
Pollock) and one of the pieces I did was a samll copper square sweat
soldered onto a larger piece of brass…I’ve since put bevels on
the piece, drilled and countersunk a hole for a bail… Polished it
with the EJ lube… It has taken on the nicest glowing
finish…

Did the same to a couple of sterling things I was goofing around
with… SE Wisconsin atmosphere and sterling are not pals…
They’re holding up for a month…

Some went on the spark wheel of a recalcitrant zippo lighter…At
least doubled the spark output on the ancient thing…

Went to the local harbor Freight outlet…I have a fairly decent
set of pliers, but the one I wanted more of was a bent chain
nose…After 20 minutes of testing at the bin (one does one’s own QA
at Harbor Freight), I found a couple that seemed decent…at $2, I
can always regrind 'em into specialty tools…or use them for
holding things in flames and such…

They also had $2 balsa wood dinosaur model kits…! These will wind
up in my spider plant forest…

The plier finishing leaves something to be desired, but I polished
them with the lube, so… Cheap import plier steel is oft prone to
mysterious corrosion…Seems to come out of nowhere… We’ll
see…

Gonna try it out on my files next time I fire them up…

Amazing stuff…!

Gary W. Bourbonais
A.J.P. (GIA)

6

Here is a very good and well qualified reference on conservation
coatings for metals (Particularly copper based) :

http://aic.stanford.edu/jaic/articles/jaic42-02-008_4.html
http://aic.stanford.edu/jaic/articles/jaic42-02-008_appx.html#bib28

More than you may ever want to know

This gives the justification for microcrystalline waxes such as
Renaissance wax and Conservators wax.

jesse

7 
I have been testing enjine joes stuff. So far my high polished
copper, sitting out for a month has NO tarnish. I used the organic
version.

I have this 20" window fan from the 70’s, an old Toastmaster…

I’ve been testing, too…first on my 20 year old kitchen sink,
stainless steel which always gets rust spots from cleaning cans for
the recycle bin…it sparkles now. Great sawblade lube, next up are
the rolling mills.

Donna in VA

8

I’d like to thank the Orchidians who wrote in about tarnish-resist
treatments for copper alloys in response to my post. In the end, I
got the “Antik Wax”, which is beeswax and carnauba wax locally
packaged but from Poliboy(Germany) and marketed for furniture
(wood). I smeared it on with a cotton puff, let it dry, and buffed
it with a fresh puff. I was doubtful that it would do anything, as
you couldn’t see it AT ALL—I was afraid I maybe rubbed it off. But
it is now almost 2 months later, and I have regularly handled the
test piece and it shows no signs of tarnish whatsoever! Pretty
amazing. Will keep an eye on it and report back if and when it
tarnishes…:-)…

Janet in Jerusalem