Cleaning tarnished gold-plated metal on an antique banjo

Pure gold doesn't tarnish, Kris, so what you are probably looking at is the gold has gotten thin in spots. Whatever cleaner or polish you use will not be working on the gold, it will be working on the underlying metal through the porosity in the gold plate. Gold plating is very thin, so I would recommend a non-abrasive cleaner or you'll expose more of the underlayment.

The ideal thing to do is to have those components gold plated again by a plating shop. If that isn't practical you can try the Medallion Gold Plating System, which is an immersion gold plating paste for home use, although I haven't personally used it and can 't attest to how effective it is.

If you decide to try it, please get back to us with your assessment of how useful it was. (If the ad at right does not show Medallion Liquid Gold, sorry, it is not available on ebay on the day you are viewing this, so they replaced it with an ad for their most popular product of the day.

Ted Mooney, P.E. finishing.com Brick, New Jersey