Satin Silver

[geneman06]

I know there have been a few posts about raw brass, and how to achieve it, but I've searched and found no posts about satin silver. I'm just curious how satin silver is achieved. I think it could be a nice way to accent a horn.

[Dan Schultz]

Silver is applied over brass that has been sand-blasted. The result is satin silver.

[Lew]

Silver is applied over brass that has been sand-blasted. The result is satin silver.

That's how it's done today, but Bloke has mentioned old horns, Kings I think, on which it appeared that they just put on a thick layer of silver plate and then sand-blasted it to get the satin appearance. The base metal was never even polished.

[Dan Schultz]

Silver is applied over brass that has been sand-blasted. The result is satin silver.

That's how it's done today, but Bloke has mentioned old horns, Kings I think, on which it appeared that they just put on a thick layer of silver plate and then sand-blasted it to get the satin appearance. The base metal was never even polished.

I can tell you this for sure.... the silver plate of today is only a couple of molecules thick as compared to that from 70 years ago. Used to be that you could actually buff the silver until it was smooth.... WITHOUT getting down to the original sandblasted brass.

[Dan Schultz]

That's how it's done today, but Bloke has mentioned old horns, Kings I think, on which it appeared that they just put on a thick layer of silver plate and then sand-blasted it to get the satin appearance. The base metal was never even polished.

I can tell you this for sure.... the silver plate of today is only a couple of molecules thick as compared to that from 70 years ago. Used to be that you could actually buff the silver until it was smooth.... WITHOUT getting down to the original sandblasted brass.

Isn't that because the "sandblasting" was done to the silver plate?

I've stripped the silver off of horns that still had a matt finished on the brass. There may have been some horns that were silver-plated and then blasted but I think for the most part, a satin silver was simply silver plating put down on a blasted surface. It's just that the old stuff was so heavy, the surface could actually be buffed smooth without getting down to the peaks on the substrate... which bore the matt finish. The result was silver plating that was so thick, it actually filled-in the peaks and valleys in the blast finish.

One thing's for certain... I certainly wouldn't try to apply a blast finish directly to modern silver plating. Also... anyone who has ever messed with blast finishes knows that it is VERY difficult to get a uniform pattern.

[TubaSailor]

Another possibility to consider - when silver is plated on heavily, it will take on a "pickled" or satin appearance due to the variation in the current flow to irregularities on the surface. (High points will tend to plate thicker, low points less) The older instruments may not have been blasted after plating, simply plated heavily enough that the finished surface was no longer uniformly smooth. If the sub-strate (brass) was not polished out before plating, it would tend to make this happen quicker. (I think those people knew what they were doing with the plating business!)

[circusboy]

I used to have an old satin silver York--VERY difficult to clean/polish. I wouldn't recommend it.

[TubaSailor]

That's one of the problems with this "pickled" / satin surface - the silver crystals are deposited in a near-perpendicular to the sub-strate, and don't actually (on a molecular level) join to one another - you're left with tiny voids between crystals that will hold the polish and oxidization, making it very difficult to clean. If it's buffed after plating, the buffing process will tend to seal the surface and fill a lot of these interstices. I had a Besson that was done in Satin silver and was impossible to get the polish off well enough to keep uniforms clean.

[Daniel C. Oberloh]

Another possibility to consider - when silver is plated on heavily, it will take on a "pickled" or satin appearance due to the variation in the current flow to irregularities on the surface. (High points will tend to plate thicker, low points less) The older instruments may not have been blasted after plating, simply plated heavily enough that the finished surface was no longer uniformly smooth. If the sub-strate (brass) was not polished out before plating, it would tend to make this happen quicker. (I think those people knew what they were doing with the plating business!)

Uhhh..... no.

D.C. Oberloh

[TubaSailor]

You're right - I wasn't thinking about the economic/practical reality of it all - by the time the silver was plated thick enough to get the rougher surface there'd be a fortune in the plating cost. - and the instrument would need wheels to move. too much theory - not enough thought.