when polishing gold (whether an item i have worked on or
polishing for a walk in customer) i get white spots on the
article… it really shows after ultra sonicing the piece. this
never used to happen , i raked the buffs… and still happens
, i dont use tripoli (i do a last sanding with 600 sandpaper) so
it cant be a contaminant. sooooooooo… what could it be ?
hhmmmmmm??? NOOOOO its not cuz of my messy bench , nice try tho
… Ruth
no not from my steam cleaner… i rouge the item, then put it
in an ultrasonic with water and mr clean. i dunno what it is…
its drivin me nutz (a short trip btw) trying to figure out where
its coming from Ruth
no not from my steam cleaner... i rouge the item, then put it
in an ultrasonic with water and mr clean. i dunno what it is..
Sounds like the problem is the Mr Clean. Grab a Gesswein catalog
and get yourself a gallon of BCR. It’s made to clean polishing
compound off of jewelry, not dirt off of floors.
I have gotten some marking on silver if left in the ultrasonic
too long, not really white spots, and not on gold. I mentioned
the steam cleaner because we had a white residue from a heating
element cleaning agent that was causing white spots. I am really
at a loss. If you have no spots after polishing, then its in the
cleaning step I would assume. Of course you will get marking if
your piece is bumping anything in the ultrasonic. I think you
should still use tripoli, that wouldn’t be part of the problem.
I’m puzzled.
Not Mr. Clean. I use it and have tried BCR also. Went back to
Mr. Clean solution, works better, quicker and easier and my work
doesn’t have white spots. Maybe its your water, try using
distilled or get a filter on the faucet.
I know the white spots that you are talking about. When I was
going to school our instuctor told us that it has something to do
with the movement of electons at the surface of the gold from the
ultasonic waves. Maybe he was full of it and making up an answer.
I never really understood what he was talking about. I just don’t
leave my stuff in the ultrasonic for too long anymore. I know
that this doesn’t help much but it’s the best that I can do for
now.
a sonic cleaner works by cavitation, which is, as i (don’t)
understand it, an action by which sound waves travel thru the
liquid and strike an object (the walls of the unit or the object
being clean) and bounce away leaving a cavity that is filled by
the next sound wave, causing litlle impacts of water with
detergent (or whatever solvent) upon the object being cleaned.
if one leaves most metals in the sonic for excessive amounts of
time, it will cause ‘white’ (unpolished) spots, especially on
flat objects.if there is excessive dirt in the solution, this
can cause these spots prematurely. some aggressive cleaning
solutions will cause spots on silver fairly quickly. if two
items are touching each other, they will vibrate against each
other and cause these irksome spots.
