Good way to clean a silver plated tuba without polish

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iiipopes
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Re: Good way to clean a silver plated tuba without polish

Post by iiipopes »

bisontuba wrote:Hagerty Silversmiths Polish Spray, 8 Oz....spray it on, let it sit, rub away the tarnish, use a garden hose to clean off, and dry...
Tarnish is silver sulfide. When you polish off tarnish, you remove silver. Maybe only on a microscopic level for each polish, but even that will eventually wear through.

The hot water/washing soda (not baking soda)/aluminum foil method creates a catalyst that causes the tarnish to break its chemical bonds, the sulphur ions to realign with the washing soda, and the freed silver ions to bond back to the rest of the silver plate to the horn in much the same way it was plated in the first place. This conserves the silver, so if any residual polishing is necessary, only a minimal amount of silver is removed rather than risking wearing through the plate with other polishing methods, which work great for solid sterling, but not silver plate.
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Re: Good way to clean a silver plated tuba without polish

Post by Lee Stofer »

TarniShield Silver Polish by 3M is my method of treating silver plated instruments after a full cleaning, in order to preserve the silver plating for as long as possible. TarniShield is the least-abrasive polish I've used, and the tarnish preventative in this polish is not a wax, but rather contains silicones that seal the pores of the silver plating, largely eliminating tarnish by preventing the silver from being exposed to the environment. The silicones also decrease the scratching from friction, making it easier to wipe down the instrument with a soft cloth (no polishing cloth recommended, just a clean old t-shirt or similar), and even after 2 years, the instrument will clean up rather nicely with a soap-and-warm-water bath, needing very little polishing. In fact, the silicones are durable-enough that my silver plater will no longer attempt to silver plate over old silver for this reason. They tell me that the only way they know of for certain to remove these silicones is by stripping or buffing the plating off, down to the raw brass. To me, that is a pretty strong affirmation of their value. By using TarniShield, I find that my mouthpiece, washed daily in soap and water, needs polishing once a year if that much, and the tuba stays rather clean and bright just by regularly washing it in soap and water, and rarely needs any polishing.
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Re: Good way to clean a silver plated tuba without polish

Post by Bobmecum »

What about cleaning new silver plated instruments like the Wessex TC 694 Chicago Presence? It's not tarnished, it just constantly gets hand oils left all over the instrument and I hate using gloves. Would a window cleaner or like Don solution in a spray bottle work or does someone have a better method for new silver cleaning?
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Re: Good way to clean a silver plated tuba without polish

Post by royjohn »

Why not just rub it down with a soft cotton cloth...and if that doesn't work, just add a little eyeglass cleaning solution?
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Re: Good way to clean a silver plated tuba without polish

Post by Bobmecum »

Because the silver polishing cloth just smears the hand oils leaving smudges. From this other post, windex or sprayway (non ammonia based) removes the hand oils with a microfiber cloth nicely, then use the polishing cloth. This worked great!
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Re: Good way to clean a silver plated tuba without polish

Post by royjohn »

I'm not talking about a silver polishing cloth, which would have oils of its own and would not take up oil. I'm just suggesting you use a dry cotton cloth just like you would use one (or a dry tissue) to wipe oil off your face. If the cloth alone doesn't do it, you can use some non-residue-leaving solvent liquid, like an alcohol based eyeglass cleaner, which is formulated to take the facial oils off your eyeglass lenses. I think a dry clot will do it, tho'.
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Re: Good way to clean a silver plated tuba without polish

Post by MaryAnn »

This is from way back but my euph is all tarnishy. Rather than subject the TNFJ to yet an udder inquiry I used the search button. Found out I don't want to polish it after all, but if I did, http://www.hermansilver.com/care.htm" target="_blank
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Re: Good way to clean a silver plated tuba without polish

Post by royjohn »

Hello MaryAnn,
Yes, the search button is often better than the TNFJ...in another thread on this subject a good while back I posted info from Jeff Herman, the nation's dean of silver restorers, on the best, least abrasive silver polish, but the TNFJ wasn't interested. I've since read what Lee Stofer has to say about silicones in Tarn-X (which Herman doesn't recommend) as protectants, so now I'm fairly confused. I'll email Herman at some point and ask. My solution on my instruments, which are mainly vintage ones, has been to polish them very little to save whatever silver plate is left.

The problem with recommending a low abrasion silver polish is that all the high abrasive ones work better, so folks say "it works good" and probably have no way of knowing that it is taking off more silver plate than necessary. eventually you find out the hard way, but I have no way to predict when (after how many polishings) that will be and don't know of any studies on this.

The nice thing about silver plate is that spot replating is fairly easy and can easily be done with an inexpensive pen plater on wear spots. It does take some scrupulous cleanliness to get the plating to adhere, but anyone can do it and the pens are not all that expensive.
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Re: Good way to clean a silver plated tuba without polish

Post by Worth »

Hagerty makes a great liquid polish as well (which I use) if you don't want to deal with the fumes, but I agree the spray is wonderful, although expensive. Easy... hold your breath, spray and come back later to polish.
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