Can anyone help me please, advice needed

[Newbie]

Hi folks, I am quite new to the world of PMC and want to darken parts of my pieces. From reading all these really useful threads on here it seems that the following is the best approach, but can anyone confirm if I have this in the right order or if there is anything else I should be doing?

After firing:
Polish item
Brush on Platinol on fingerprint/wording area (or should I dip the whole piece?)
Rinse in cold water
Soak in bicarb of soda and water to stop Platinol further developing (?) is this correct??
Polish again to final finish
Use a wax such as Renaissance wax to coat the final piece
Rub with silver cloth or sunshine cloth?
Finished!? Or is there more?
Many thanks, any advice very much appreciated x

[caroleallen]

I may be completely wrong but I thought fine silver couldn't be patinated.

[enigma]

I have a friend who works with PMC and she uses LOS on it , soaks in bicarb /water then finishes with the renaissance wax.
Ive never gotten into it so don't know any more than that.

[camalidesign]

You can patinate PMC just like any other silver or fine silver. Fine silver doesn't tarnish as much as sterling, but since the patina's we are talking about are "chemically induced" ones they will take a black patina very well.

Some people recommend adding patina before you polish, to the matte silver, straight out of the kiln and then polish, can't remember if it was Celie Fago or someone else... This work particularly well for textured pieces and gives them a great look.

I used to use LOS on PMC at lot and it works fine, as I would imagine Platinol will too. I never bother with bicarb, just rinse thoroughly with water. I have also never finished with wax, but it depends on how exposed the area is that is blackened I guess.

Whether you dip the whole piece or just brush on the areas that you want to bring out depends on your final finish as far as I am concerned. If you want a high shine polished piece with just the fingerprint emphasized then paint it on sparingly so there is much less to polish off. If you want to give the piece an overall gunmetal grey patina then dip the whole thing and rub off with sandpaper or steel wool for a brushed gunmetal grey look.

Carin