Does anyone have advice about their favorite method to polish their
silver items? I have noticed that some designs have silver that is so
highly polished that you can almost see your reflection in it. I
would like to polish my items, especially some of my hammered items,
like this. How would one do this and what Foredom attachment would
one use and, if necessary, what polish would one use? Is there
anything that I can apply to the silver to keep it shiny and not have
it tarnish? Thanks in advance for any responses.
You’ll get as many replies as there are people on this one. When we
used to polish hundreds of pieces of silver in Albuq., we used Zam,
after white diamond. In my opinion, zam is the very best polish for
silver, although any polish will do a good job. It will give you that
mirror finish you mention without much grief. As far as the Foredom -
it’s going to be a struggle to get a good polish with a flex shaft no
matter what you use. I’d say just buy an assortment of small brushes,
some hard and some soft, and use what works best on your work, in
each area of the piece. The bigger the brush, the better, though of
course you are limited by the flex shaft itself - you can’t put a 6
inch wheel on it, obviously.
I’ve had great success with Fabuluster polish. Green rouge the piece
first… clean thoroughly, then Fab. Use a soft muslin wheel and soft
pressure.
Margie Mersky
www.mmwaxmodels.com
I would like to polish my items, especially some of my hammered items
If you use a highly polished hammer, the hammered piece will have
the same finish.
Beyond that, I recently bought some TarniShield silver polish (3M)
and it produces a really bright shine. It is supposed to prevent
tarnish as well, but I’m not sure how well it does that, as yet.
I also like Goddard’s Long Shine cloths-- they work great.
Incidentally, at my last show, a gentleman who works for Whiney
Worldwide gave me a glass cleaning cloth (sorry, I don’t recall what
it is called) from 3M. It was only so-so at removing fingerprints
from glass, but it picked up every trace of dust or lint after I
cleaned with Windex-- and it can be washed and used indefinately.
Very nice!
Noel
The best polishing product I have found is ‘Autosol’ car chrome
polish in a gold and black tube. It seemed to go off the market for a
while but it seems to have reappeared again. It is the only
commercial metal polish that does seem to work but it does a
marvellous job on all metals from silver to hardened steel. Use it
with a fairly soft buff.
Ian
Ian W. Wright
Sheffield UK