Letter 1432

Replating silverware at home

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Hi, there. My wife has a large number of old silver-plated forks, knives, and spoons. Most of them have a lot of wear and tear, and need to be replated. Local shops here quote about $15 per piece to replate them, which is way beyond my budget.

Is there a practical way to replate them with silver at home? Here's some background information to give you that warm, fuzzy feeling that I won't kill myself with chemicals: Ph.D. in Oceanography, ran a transmission electron microscope lab and darkroom with metal vaporization systems, osmium baths for specimens, etc. I'm a really careful guy, and I do have access to DC power supplies (now working in Silicon Valley), but I don't know what the right chemical bath might be for a lasting, bright finish. Any suggestions or pointers would be helpful. Thanks. --

George Lewbel

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Sorry, Dr. Lewbel, in my opinion there is not a practical way to do real silver electroplating at home--

First, you need cyanide-based plating solutions. These have no place in a home, no matter how careful and experienced a person you are, and nobody will sell them for shipment to a residential address. Why limit your search to local plating shops though?

Note: Keep reading, though, as there is newer info below!

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

Dear Mr. Lewbel I just returned from my sister's house and watched her use a product that she ordered from a catalog. She was trying it out on several silver items which were really a mess. Some of them had failed to polish, were black and dull looking.

She found that the item she was using not only made the silver look wonderful, it appeared to replate the areas that were blackened, or where the silver was rubbed off with brass showing through. I have not called them yet, but I thought that you might be interested in doing so.

Sandra Sachs
- Baltimore, MD

Thanks, Sandra! Although products like those aren't electroplating, but they do deposit a very thin coating of silver on the item, and some people are well satisfied with it.

This may not offer the "lasting bright finish" that Dr. Lewbel seeks, but it may be "good enough" considering the alternatives.

We've now added an FAQ, "Silver Plating at Home" which compares this approach with real electroplating, and sources those resilvering products -- which also include Jax Silver Plating Solution, Miracle Silver, Nu Silver, Quickshine, Silveron, Silver Plating Formula, Silver Secret, and The Silver Solution.

Thanks again.

Ted Mooney
finishing.com
Brick, New Jersey

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Back in the 1980's I demonstrated a product called Silver Solution and Silver Maintenance Solution at The Bon dept. store. I even brought my own silver to demonstrate on, as well as asking people for their pennies. The product was made by Sheffield, a well known name in the world of Silver. Some years later when my bottles were empty I couldn't find it at all. Finally in 2005 I found a contact. It was the old product and I was delighted. It is not cheap, but the more you buy the less the cost. It would be nice to find someone in the states who carries it, and see if the price would be less. If anyone finds a local server, please let me know.

Chellis S. Swenson
- Tacoma, WA - USA

April 18, 2008

Thanks, Chellis. This letter is but one of dozens of threads on that subject on this site and it was proving just impossible to maintain working links for the ever-shifting URLs scattered across our pages. So we are now maintaining links for that product and a bunch of competitive products on our "Silver Plating at home" page.

Regards,

Ted Mooney
finishing.com
Brick, New Jersey

July 20, 2008

Hi, just found your page - very good, now bookmarked!
I have been using SILVERON, bought years ago at some fair or other... It seems to work well on moderately tarnished silver - tarnish just disappears with light wiping on. I have used it instead of abrasive metal polishes as I hate the idea of removing even more silver. But it does not plate onto areas that have worn through to the base metal (perhaps the base metal of my sugar bowls is electrochemically wrong!)
Anyway, I need a replacement bottle of this stuff or something equally good or better, but it has to be available in Canada (due to exhorbitant customs fees.) I can no longer find SILVERON in Canada. Any ideas?
As an EE with a lot of lab experience I'd much rather set up a small tank and DC source to replate items properly but there seems to be some hysteria about the chemicals. Up here you can't get them outside of industry, also pharmacies no longer sell any loose chemicals (I am retired from the electronics industry now, so no contacts.) Is it really true that no common chemicals even partially substitute as an electrolyte? I'm not trying to make fat 9999-fine Ag cathodes, rather get just a few tenths of a thou replated on bare spots. I have some 9999-fine silver bars for anodes.
Cheers,
Roger
near Toronto, Canada.

Roger Jones, P.Eng, SMIEEE
Engineering consultant - Thornhill, Ontario, Canada

July 2008

Hi, Roger. Thanks for the kind words. As noted, we didn't put links to Silveron or a Canadian source of resilvering solutions on this particular page; rather, those links are on our Silver Plating at Home FAQ because it's possible to maintain the links in one place but impossible if we retrogress to scattering them across over 50,000 threads.

As for the suggestion against electroplating yourself, it's not really hysteria. Decorative Silver plating, as opposed to many other kinds of plating, can still only be done out of a cyanide-based bath. You will probably find cyanide impossible to get because it is an extremely powerful, instantaneous acting poison if even a very small amount is accidentally ingested. And if you accidentally acidify it, which is very easy, you've built yourself California's gas chamber. There are a few commercially available non-cyanide silver plating baths, but they are for electronics, and even their proud sellers are quick to note that the color is off.

You could perhaps try copper plating your item and then use Silveron or similar.

Regards,

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