Pickle out of date?

[Viki]

Hi,

I have a tub of the Vitex safe pickling powder which I opened in 2017 but have not used again since then and I was wondering if it goes out of date, or might not work so well now?

I am a complete beginner and I did a short silversmith course in 2017 but I could not pursue it due to a personal situation. I would now like to get back into it so I may be asking a few questions in the near future...

I am going to be using a slow cooker for pickling. Also, is this still the best powder to use or should I try something else?
I'm trying to be as non-toxic and safe as possible with my work.

Thanks.

[Dennis]

One way or another you will be getting rid of it. So don't waste it. Use it first. Welcome to the forum. Dennis.

[Viki]

Thank you Dennis.


And yes you are right, all I can do is try it.

Would you be able to recommend a good, budget-friendly set of files, please?

[china]

Dennis may have a different view. although in my opinion there are no budget friendly files, bite the bullet and by decent files to start with.

[nicks creative stuff]

HI Viki, One tip I have for files is if you have a garden machinery store or outlet nearby it’s well worth checking out chainsaw files. Two shapes are needed to sharpen chains, a flat file and round files. They are a very hard file having to do the job of sharpening the teeth on a cutting chain. They’re cheap because you can get through a lot of them, wearing out cutting the hard steel of the tooth. The round ones come in a variety of sizes between 4 mm and 6 mm. Handy files to have in a tool kit that are very sharp and last well when used on non-ferrous materials … Nick

[CJ57]

I agree with Bob, you would not need a flat and half round but the best you can afford. You can get away with budget needle files though at a push