3028. Resilvering plateware

Letter 3028

Resilvering plateware

I am trying to repair worn spots on silver tea pots, etc.. I have found an old formula that I have tried with no success. Can you please help? Also can this (or a solution that works) be used to apply silver over steel? Formula: .5oz silver chloride, ground together with 1.5 oz sodium chloride. Mixed with 1oz cream of tarter. Mix with water to form paste and apply with clean soft cloth.

Mark R [name deleted for privacy]
- Malvern, PA

Dear Mark, Your recipe it's correct, but thats is a old method for plating silver. You can try this old recipe. silver chloride 10 gr/l ,NaCl 10 gr/l, slaked lime 15 gr/l and what we called in Sweden pottaska 20 gr/l. Mixed with water to a dough. I hope you can translate pottaska, good luck. Regards Anders

Anders Sundman
surface finishing engineer
Sweden

April 11, 2008

I recently saw a formula from Anders Sundman [Sweden] detailing a recipe for covering copper or brass.The recipe did not say how to apply the ' dough' to the piece. I would appreciate any further comments on the subject

Jack Templeman
shop employee - Slidell,La USA

April 20, 2008

Hi, Jack. Anders is one of the site's most helpful and prolific responders, but English is his 2nd language. My suspicion is that this mix won't come out as thick and heavy as you might think :-)

It's probably a paste, rather than a dough, and I would interpret that it is to be applied with a clean soft cloth as Mark R wrote.

Be aware that you can buy premade resilvering solutions under a number of different commercial names. Please see our Resilvering at Home FAQ.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
finishing.com
Brick, NJ

Dear Reader: please choose what you want to do--

I want to answer or follow-up on this subject publicly; I want to post a new question or inquiry of my own on a different subject
: This letter is within a monitored forum, very much "alive" here in 2008. If you spot any broken links or obsolete info, please advise!