Qwicksilver Electrolytic Silver Cleaning Plate

A. Hi Karen. Although quicksilver is a nickname for mercury and Qwicksilver is apparently a trade name for an aluminum electrolytic cleaning plate, there will be no mercury in an electrolytic cleaning plate.

Luck & Regards,

Thank you for getting back to me as I have mercury toxicity and it is super important to me that I don't have any hidden mercury around me in the house.

A. Hi, Zoraida. I'm not familiar with that particular brand, but I have an electrolytic cleaning plate from the late 1940's which was left to my wife by my in-laws. You may also wish to see letter 4785, which explains the chemistry behind cleaning silver with aluminum this way.

Regards,

Qwicksilver plates are available by writing QWICKSILVER P. O. Box 2118 Bristol, TN

A. Qwicksilver is a trademarked and internationally patented product. You can buy it for delivery worldwide.

A. Hi Sal. Just use a plastic dishpan.

Regards,

A. Hello Jean. Most say washing soda [on eBay or Amazon] works well; others say water softener salt is okay too. I've also used Spic and Span [affil links] myself with good results.

Regards,

A. About 7 years ago I called Quicksilver to order more reaction agent, and the person on the phone told me to use Arm & Hammer Super washing soda [on eBay or Amazon] . He told me it's a lot cheaper, and it's basically the same stuff.

It's been working fine for us.

We recently installed a black enamel sink, replacing our stainless steel one. I am now using a 3 gallon stainless steel lobster pot.

A. From the description you give your Qwicksilver plate is almost totally corroded with the residue of old tarnish. Tarnish must be washed off the plate immediately after cleaning (as the instructions clearly state) or it will eventually become inert. It is surprising you were able to clean ANY silver. After ten years perhaps you should buy another one. Contact Qwicksilver.

A. This old wives' tale again. Clean with aluminium foil and you'll strip your silver plating. Sure it produces electrolytic action, so does salt and a tin can. Electrolytic action needs to be controlled, which is why the Qwicksilver plate has an international patent.

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Ed. note: Hi, Brian. I apologize that we let a brand name be used on this forum, which is for technical discussions related to metal finishing. Most of our readers are here for the science of the surface engineering, not for distributorship info for one brand of a consumer product. We made the mistake on the first posting of allowing this particular thread to get commercial, which we try hard to avoid because things usually go downhill. Please post the patent number so readers can investigate the technical issue you've introduced. Thanks!

I came to this site to find out where I could obtain another one of these plates; I have one and it is fine. For an activator I have always used Calgon water softener, but Arm & Hammer washing soda [on eBay or Amazon] is also fine. I have made a note of the supplier in Tennessee and will follow it up.

A. One of course CAN use a commercial cleaning plate IF one can find one without spending a arm or a leg.

In simple terms here is what is going on. sulfur [affil links] likes to bond to Silver (oxidize/tarnish) and will do so naturally over a period of time. You CAN polish it away, but you WILL remove some of the silver in doing so.

Sulfur also likes to bond with Aluminum MORE than it does silver, and given the chance, will move. So . . . getting a "tarnished" piece of silver in direct contact with ANY piece of aluminum (plate, pot, foil) with the catalyst of HOT water and washing soda [on eBay or Amazon] (look for Arm&Hammer) sets up the proper environment for this transfer.

Once the item looks clean, remove and completely rinse and wipe down or residue will result.

As the water cools, the reaction will slow and stop, so start with the hottest. Washing and Baking soda are NOT the same chemically. Baking soda will work, but Washing Soda will work Better.

A. After I sent you the query I was looking at the plate and realized that it was not as nice looking as it was originally. I scoured them with a non abrasive scrubber (I was afraid to use #0000 steel wool [on eBay or Amazon] but have since found out I can). Anyway it came back close to shiny and now works! Hurray!

A. I too love this product. I was able to locate it on-line at www.iKitchen.com for around $15.00. Type in Jewelry cleaner in the search field.

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Ed. note Jan 2017: That domain name is currently a link farm :-(

I have had my plate for 20 years or more. I love it! I collect sterling miniatures, and I would never be able to enjoy them without Qwicksilver!

Regular old baking soda works for me. Find it, buy it, LOVE IT!

Barbie

A. After a bit of googling, the activation chemical for the qwicksilver plate is actually "soda ash" available at your local pool supply store. Common name is "pH UP" .

A. Hi,

A Company called Natural Life Company sells the electrolytic plate worldwide under the name of Sparkle Cleaning Plate .
The activator for the plate is sodium carbonate / washing soda [affil links] (or Lectric Soda) and any company selling it as their own Brand Activator is just trying to make an EXTRA buck!

Actually for transparency sake, I run the Natural Life Company and am happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

A. I wouldn't do it myself, Rita. You may have seen school science experiments where you put iron nails in copper sulphate [on eBay or Amazon]and they plate themselves with copper, or where you put copper items into silver nitrate and they plate themselves with silver. If you put both gold and silver surfaces into a conductive solution, "electrolysis" or "galvanic action" might cause some of the gold to deposit onto the silver. One metal at a time is the rule.

Regards,

A. Easy! For silver:
1. Boil the kettle (with lots of water).
2. Place the silver objects to be cleaned in your sink.
3. Sprinkle a good handful of CALGON WATER SOFTENER over the silver items.
4. Pour on the full kettleful of boiling water, and add enough VERY HOT water from the tap to cover all the items.
5. Wait a few minutes.
6. Drain the sink, rinse and dry the items and enjoy!

The results are usually quite good, but some extra-tarnished items may need a second go-round, or a finishing rub with silver polish.

For brass, copper, bronze etc.:
Same instructions, except use washing soda [on eBay or Amazon] instead of water softener. I usually use Arm & Hammer. Remember, washing soda and baking soda are NOT the same thing.

Oh, and always clean silver separately from the brass, copper etc. pieces.

Hope this helps!

A. It probably bears repeating at this point that at the very top of this thread, Ted linked to another thread (www.finishing.com/47/85.shtml) where it is revealed that there's hardly anything special behind this or similar products. It's just a piece of aluminum. The electrolyte can be just about anything I'm sure, baking soda is readily available to most but the point it to have some ions dissolved in the water in order to allow the electrolytic reaction to proceed.

Mixing alloys in an electrolyte bath can be risky. In this case the combination of aluminum and the tarnished silver generates a desired reaction. Other combinations can generate an unwanted reaction.

Stainless steel would probably be okay here since it's fairly unreactive, but just to make sure I would isolate it from the other metals. I.e. you can still use the stainless sink to fill up with your electrolyte bath, but don't set the aluminum and silver directly on the sink bottom. Use a plastic or ceramic plate or some such.

It should be fine to mix sterling silver and silver plated items, since the surface of both are silver.

A. Hi Laura. The conductive salts used in this system for electrolytically cleaning silver with aluminum are quite mild. None of us can see the mirror you are mentioning, but my guess is it will be no problem.

Regards,