Fire stain on textured silver

Hi all

Can I please yet again pick your expert brains!

I'm working on a commission which consists of 5 flat silver pendants on a necklace some of which are mirror finished and some textured. Despite using plenty of borax to protect three of them and easy solder, they have fire stain on them. The problem is I hammer textured these pieces so am a bit unsure as to how to get rid of the fire stain without rubbing down the actual hammer design. They've been polished in a tumbler and have a high shine which I'd prefer to keep if possible.

If I use wet / dry or micromesh, it would mean losing the texture. I do have the Dremel 300 rotary drill kit with the attachments but I haven't had it long so not sure what all the attachments do yet so don't know whether using the polisher on there with rouge would help?

I suspect my options are going to be either rub the pieces back to a smooth finish and re-texture or go for a matt finish?

Thanks

Hi louisella,
firescale can be removed by abrasion, or etching with nitric acid, which are not options in this case.

You can also use depletion gilding, which consist of heating to very dull red and then quenching in pickle. This creates a surface of fine silver, which after five or six cycles will disguise the problem, but of course would be too thin to be repolished, except possibly with a soapy brass brush. It is also rather dicy if you have used easy solder.

Lastly, if you care enough you can send it to a plater, which is the ultimate solution. Personally I would return it to a duller finish, using the coarsest (yellow) radial disk, when the problem will disappear, and just burnish the edges and some highlights for dramatic effect. Dennis.

Thanks Dennis

I think it's time to tackle the pieces with the yellow disk and go for a more matt finish (and tell myself that's the finish I was aiming for all along!)

After reading some other posts on here, I've also invested in some Magic Dennis to see if that helps with any further firestain issues :)

Sarah

Quote:

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Originally Posted by louisella76

Thanks Dennis

After reading some other posts on here, I've also invested in some Magic Dennis to see if that helps with any further firestain issues :)

Sarah

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Magic Dennis ha ha?? Apologies Dennis - I appear to have inadvertently gifted you with you mystical powers!! I meant Magic Boric.... :D

The other option might be to deliberately patinate those elements? I prefer Platinol to Liver of Sulphur, but both would do the job and would retain the texture, allow you to polish the highlights back to a really high shine, and disguise the firestain. Adding a change of colour along with the texture mix might be quite interesting if the design allows it.

Thanks George - thankfully the radial discs seemed to have done the trick!