Forced Patina on Silver

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Mar 1, 2014
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I've had this Ferndown Bulldog is a little over a year old now, and over the last year I've found that I've never really been happy with a silver maintenence schedule.

I know, polish it every day, or every week, or something...

Not happening.

So for the last eight months I had a thick coating of wax covering the silver. It looked terrible, and Somehow my fingerprint still got etched into the surface underneath. Trying to keep an even, shiny surface seems like a lost cause, and reversing tarnish with electrolysis every few months is a pain. So, I finally gave up and said: "If you can't beat 'em, join them."
First I gave it a "rusticated" finish to start with a fresh surface and make it that much more practical. Somehow it looks a lot rougher than I expected from my chunk of sandpaper that's at least 1200 grit, probably because it was an older, slightly dirty piece of sandpaper.
I have to say I'm fairly pleased with the results, the different blue and green hues are kind of neat. All I did was stick it in a tub with a sliced boiled egg. Almost all of the tarnishing happens in the first five minutes, these processes are highly dependant on temperature.
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Mar 1, 2014
3,646
4,916
Almost forgot to mention, if you're going to try something like this I suggest rotating the silver piece every minute or two for the first ten minutes, this came out fairly uneven after the first seven minutes in the tub, sitting about four inches away from the egg.

After the first ten minutes when things are cooler it progresses much more slowly, but still somewhat dependant on the position of the silver relative to the egg.
Over the last week of sitting on a shelf it hasn't changed much, which is good. We'll see how well it holds with a bit of use. I'll still wipe it down after every bowl just to make sure skin oils and such don't start pitting the surface.

 

dmcmtk

Lifer
Aug 23, 2013
3,672
1,685
A jeweler's cloth will take any tarnish off in a second.
Exactly. However, I do know jewelers that deliberately oxidize Silver. I like it shiny, but it's your pipe.

 

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,565
27,068
Carmel Valley, CA
Yeah, "patina" on silver doesn't cut it for me. My silver bands don't get polished often, but it's easy to do so, and I like the look of bright silver. But an inventive approach, and glad you like it.

 

rcstan

Lifer
Mar 7, 2012
1,466
8
Sunset Beach NC
I've dabbed a bit of bleach with a qtip onto the silver band of one of my Ruby Bark Dunnies and obtained roughly the same results. Just be mindful, if you don't like the smell of bleach (like me), to let it air out for some while before smoking it. On a Group 3, the bleach smelling band positions right under my nostrils when clenching.....

 
Yes, I use liver of sulfur to patina silver quite often, which can be made from rotten eggs. But, your speeding up a process that won't stop. It will rapidly turn black from there. How rapidly will depend on a lot of factors. You can also add a drop of ammonia to the egg to bring out purples and greens. But, like I said, it's fleeting. Also keep in mind that forcing a patina will force the oxidation deeper into the metal, so that it will remove deeper layers of metal and even cause the black to go deeper into the silver. On a silver spoon or piece of jewelry it's only a minor deal, but on a spigot that requires a precise dimension to fit properly, you "could" be setting up a disaster in the engineering of the fit.
I use a jeweler so cloth on all of my pipes before racking them to keep the stems nice and shiny. Just quickly giving the silver a rub is all it takes. The clothes are quite cheap on Amazon.

 

tarheel1

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 16, 2014
936
2
My silver needs to be shiny. I do need to get a healers cloth, but my ferndowns don't seem to oxidize very quickly.

 
Mar 1, 2014
3,646
4,916
Bleach on a Q-tip, I might try that next time.
The reason I'm so quick to try the forced patina is I know that tarnish is reversible. On the other hand Polishing is permanently removing material, howerever slight that may be.

Yes I'm paranoid, and the polishing cloth will be better for 99.9% of people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGCx9HZwYBo

 

ssjones

Moderator
Staff member
May 11, 2011
18,317
11,068
Maryland
postimg.cc
A Polishing cloth will do a while lot less damage than 1200 grit paper. I wouldn't use something so evasive on my silver pipes, but that one belongs to you.

 
Mar 1, 2014
3,646
4,916
The sandpaper was a one-time deal.

And I didn't want to bother spending another afternoon using the electrolysis technique since you can't just dunk a pipe in the solution, it's a bit tedious. I've done it a few times but not with batteries, which is probably what I should try that next time, whenever this gets dark enough to seem worth re-applying tarnish.

 

Chasing Embers

Captain of the Black Frigate
Nov 12, 2014
43,248
108,345
I guess I'm overly cautious with anything silver as my body chemistry rapidly blackens all of my silver rings and necklace charms.

 

georged

Lifer
Mar 7, 2013
5,491
13,920
If you prefer a natural looking slight patina over EITHER a white-bright freshly polished glare or deep blackish tarnish, use an ordinary paper towel.
Not TP or Kleenex, but a decent brand of kitchen countertop paper towel. They have a small amount of fine abrasive in them by design, and when used dry on silver take off most of the tarnish but not quite all of it. (You might think so at first glance, but compare side-to-side with some silver that was hit with a dab of Flitz). The shine is mellower, and lettering or proofmarks are also left alone which gives a pleasant 3D look.

 

buckaroo

Lifer
Sep 30, 2014
1,153
2,910
So. Cal.
^ Interesting tip. Thx. I'll have to try that.
I hear ya on the silver. I like what you did. I have quite a few spigots (Dhills) and my favorite is the the gold spigot. No upkeep.

 
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